


Highway 9

by ellispark



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, Case Fic, Dean/Cas Pinefest, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Lonely highways and lonely hearts club, M/M, Mystery, Professor!Cas, Suicide Attempt, detective!dean, or is it Friends to Enemies to Friends to Lovers?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-03 16:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 38,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14000049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellispark/pseuds/ellispark
Summary: Dean Winchester is a private investigator working what should be an open-and-shut vandalism case on an isolated stretch of rural highway.Except it’s not an open-and-shut case, because whatever is happening on Highway 9 isn’t vandalism — it’s something far more sinister and unnatural. And if Dean is going to get to the bottom of this case, he’s going to have to rely on the one person he’s learned he can’t rely on for anything — his ex-best friend, Cas Novak.





	1. Night 03

 

 _A flame,_  
_Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,_  
_Hovering and blazing with delusive light,_  
_Misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way_  
_To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;_  
_There swallowed up and lost..._

**John Milton, “Paradise Lost”**

 

**Night 03, 2:12 a.m.**

On the third night of the most boring stakeout in the history of stakeouts, Cas comes back.

Dean’s in the middle of draining the thermos of coffee Sam packed for him, drumming his fingers on the wheel in a shaky attempt to match up with the tune of Led Zeppelin’s “Fool In the Rain” and missing his bed, when a gaudy old Lincoln Continental pulls up to the red light at his end of the bridge. Dean’s fingers still, and he grips the wheel tight with one hand, the thermos clutched in the other.

It’s pitch black because it’s two in the fucking morning, so he can’t see Cas in the driver’s seat, but he knows it’s him. He’d know Cas’s stupid car anywhere.

 _Don’t look over here,_ Dean thinks. _Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look..._

He knows Cas spots the Impala because he whips across the road, pulling the Continental into the dirt next to Baby, not caring about the gravel he kicks up as he parks next to Dean.

Cas rolls his window down, and _Jesus_ , there’s no way to hide from this. Dean does the same.

They stare at each other. Cas’s hair is shorter, but otherwise he looks the same. He still wears his dorky trench coat, even in the middle of the night in the middle of summer. Dean can’t make out the expression on his face in the dark, but he wonders if Cas looks as panicked as Dean does. Probably not.

“Dean —”

“What are you doing here?”

The words come out clipped and ragged, harsher than he intended. Dean doesn’t try to take them back.

Cas laughs, strained and false.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

 _Two in the morning,_ Dean thinks. _Two in the morning on a road in the middle of nowhere, for fuck’s sake._

What are the odds Cas would pull up? Not high, close to non-existent, and yet...

“I’m freelancing now,” Dean says, adding, “They’ve had some vandalism.” He waves his hand at the construction equipment lining the side of the highway, unwilling to elaborate further.

“Oh.” Cas’s head dips down. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, you didn’t call.”

Cas looks up, straight at him. Dean’s glad for the cover of the night, for the tall trees around them blocking out the moonlight. If he could see Cas’s sad blue eyes, he’d be lost. Again.

“Dean, I —”

“I’m working here, Cas.” He gestures over at the light. “That thing changes once every five minutes. You better go catch it while it’s green.”

Cas sighs, loud and worn. Well, what did he expect after nine months of no contact? Dean’s not feeling too charitable right now.

“Can we talk, sometime?” Cas asks in a small voice. “I need to explain.”

Dean thinks, _damn right you do_ , but he doesn’t say it. He listens to Robert Plant croon about waiting on the wrong block, and he reaches over to turn the radio off before Plant can start in about the light of love. He doesn’t need that shit right now.

“I’m here every night.” Dean aims for flippant but misses by a mile. “I sleep in the day now, so... No availability.”

“I’m sorry, Dean, I know —”

“The light’s gonna turn red,” Dean says, and he rolls his window up.


	2. Night 04

**Night 04, 10:27 p.m.**

Dean rolls up to his post about an hour late thanks to a wreck further south on Highway 9. Traffic on both lanes stalled out for five miles. Dean watched them tow away a mangled Jeep, followed by a slightly less crumpled Ford F-150, and found himself thinking _thank God it’s no one I know_ , which made him feel guilty. This stupid road, with its 75 mile per hour speed limit, its tight turns and steep hills. It’s a death trap.

It’s also why Dean has a job. Turns out there’s less private eye work in rural Texas than he’d estimated when he decided to go freelance. If he thought his stellar reputation at the sheriff’s office would carry over into private investigation, get him cases from the metro area, he thought wrong. Dean resigned from the force seven months ago. He’s taken five cases since — two home burglaries (both ended up being divorce cases where the ex-spouse took something they weren’t supposed to), one cyber-stalking he handed over to the “real” police for prosecution, one missing dog he looked for pro bono, and now this. A pity job from Bobby.

Highway 9 runs between Dean’s hometown, Jacksonville, and up north to the much larger city of Winston. It’s a two-lane road for more than 50 miles, and it’s one of the deadliest roads in Texas. Dean knows all too well — as a rookie they sent him out here to work wrecks all the time, including his father’s. Jody never sent Dean to an accident on Highway 9 again after that. But whenever he passes the spot where his dad died, he holds his breath.

John Winchester’s name belongs on a long list of people who died on this road. Six months ago the death toll reached whatever arbitrary number it takes to make the Texas Department of Transportation sit up and say, “Well, hey — maybe we should do something about this.”

So they contracted out work on ten miles of the highway at a time, widening it to four lanes with a bigger shoulder. About four months and 20 miles in, the “accidents” began.

No one thought much about them at first. A few tools go missing; well, maybe someone misplaced them. A bulldozer’s engine catches on fire apropos of nothing; well maybe it detonated too early. Then the brake lines were cut on a paver and it ran straight into a car traveling along the open lane of traffic. No one got hurt, but TxDOT asked for night security at the job site. So Bobby Singer, the contractor and an old friend, called Dean.

They’re at a difficult stretch of the job, in an area where Highway 9 dips into a low valley two miles long and surrounded by a thin wood and farmland. TxDOT decided not to change the road to four lanes through the valley — too expensive — and have opted instead to redo the asphalt and widen the shoulder, which is where Bobby and Rufus’s paving crew comes into play.

So Dean sits every night in the Impala parked next to the red light on the north side of the valley, before the first of two bridges that cross a low creek running in a lazy-S through the nearby woods. They have to close the road down to one lane for the repaving, so TxDOT set up two red lights on both ends of the valley. One will turn green to let northbound traffic go; southbound traffic will wait for at least five minutes at the far end of the other bridge where the road widens back out to two lanes and vice versa. It’s not economical for the drivers’ time, but Dean doesn’t see many people out and about in the middle of the night, so it doesn’t bother him.

It does bother him he’s four nights in with no sign of the saboteur. Four nights of drinking shitty coffee Sam stuffed in his hands on his way out the door. Four nights of trying not to fall asleep as he stares at the light, counting how many times it flickers from red to green and back. Four nights of endless Led Zeppelin and Queen and Bob Seger, singing off-key to keep himself awake as nothing happens around him.

And one night to obsess over Cas showing back up.

Bored and frustrated at missing an hour of darkness due to the wreck, Dean walks around the widespread construction site, running his flashlight over the heavy machinery and listening for sounds in the woods. Nothing. He pulls his phone out to call Sam, who he sees only briefly these days as they pass each other at the door to their apartment, one going in, one going out.

Sam answers on the third ring.

“Dean,” he groans, voice muffled like he’s talking into his pillow. “I have to work at six tomorrow. What do you want?”

“Guess who showed up out here last night?”

The line goes quiet, then Sam says, much more awake, “Who?”

Dean kicks at a patch of dirt at the side of the road, waving to the short line of cars passing along the open lane.

“Cas Novak.”

“Oh, shit, Dean, I forgot to tell you; I’m so sorry...”

Dean blinks.

“You forgot to tell me what, Sam?”

He hears Sam huff. “Cas called me like two, three weeks ago? He moved back, Dean. I was going to tell you, I swear, I just needed the right time to bring it up.”

“Well fuck, Sam.” Dean glares at the moon for lack of a better target. “Maybe a good time to tell me would have been before he showed up here in the middle of the night wanting to ‘talk,’ or what the fuck ever.”

“Maybe you should talk to him. I mean, he’s your best friend.”

“ _Was_. Was my best friend.”

“Right, well.” Dean can feel Sam turning on the puppy dog eyes. “I really miss him, don’t you? I wish you two could work things out. Maybe we could all be friends again.”

“Did he tell you where he was and what the hell he was doing?”

Sam stays quiet. Dean swears under his breath.

“He did, didn’t he? Well, fuck him.”

“Dean, he said he’s going to tell you; it’s not my place...”

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Dean snaps. “If Jess disappeared from your life for nine fucking months and then she called me up out of the blue to tell me where she’d been, you think I’d keep that from you?”

“It’s not the same, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean’s relieved he doesn’t point out there should be a massive difference between his sweet new girlfriend and the guy who blew into Dean’s life like a whirlwind and exited just as quickly. “He’s afraid you’ll hate him.”

Dean lets out a bitter laugh.

“Yeah, well, I already do.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” Dean catches sight of what looks like a flashlight beam at the other end of the valley, near where the massive chip spreader is parked. “Damn it, Sam, I gotta go.”

“Just because you hate emotional conversations —”

Dean hangs up, knowing full well he can call Sam back later, and sprints toward the light. It grows brighter, bigger as he nears, and Dean shouts “Hey! What the hell are you doing!” even though it’s reckless to confront someone he can’t see.

He’s almost to the chip spreader when the light vanishes, blinking out of existence. Dean slows down and shines his own flashlight over the equipment, looking for any sign of the mystery vandal.

Nothing.

He runs around to the other side of the chip spreader, but the roadside is empty. He spins in a circle, panning the light over the trees along the highway. He catches the glowing eyes of a deer and jumps when it bounds away, knocking through the woods as it flees.

“What the hell?” He can’t be seeing things. He’s too young for that shit. There was a light here, and lights don’t appear and disappear on their own.

His phone rings in his pocket, “Lonely Is the Night” blaring in the silence of the dead stretch of road. It’s fitting for the time and place. Dean takes one more look around, seeing zilch, then answers without looking at the caller ID.

“Hey, bitch.”

“Jerk,” Sam says. “What happened? Did you actually see something, or were you just done talking about Cas?”

Dean eyes the chip spreader over his shoulder as he walks back to the Impala.

“I don’t know. I thought I saw something, but... I think the rapid change in sleep schedule is getting to me.”

Sam starts in on how Dean ought to try harder to sleep during the day, not lie around watching _Game of Thrones_ , but Dean’s hardly listening. He keeps his eyes on the trees once he’s settled back in the Impala, letting Sam drone on in his ear, taking comfort in his brother’s obliviousness.

He can’t shake the feeling he’s being watched.


	3. Night 05

**Night 05, 4:30 a.m.**

The early work crew arrives in an hour. Dean listens to an FM talk show and waits out the last bit of his night, munching on a breakfast burrito Jess probably made but Sam passed off as his own creation.

Sam gets up for work soon; he usually calls around 5 and talks to Dean while he’s scarfing down his Wheaties and getting dressed for his next shift at the local coffee shop, Ellen’s. Dean can easily make it through the last thirty minutes of his shift with Sam’s voice in his ear, rambling on about the last book he read and griping about how much minimum wage jobs suck. But the hour between 4 and 5, when there’s nothing to listen to but the radio or birdsong and nowhere to hide from his own thoughts — that hour gets to him.

Dean kept his eyes glued to the chip spreader half the night, but he never spotted the mystery light again. Now his head aches and his eyes hurt and he could use a cup of coffee, but what he needs is a good night’s (well, day’s) sleep.

He leans back in his seat, trying to pay attention to the radio personalities as they talk about Kesha’s latest legal drama. He’s not entirely sure who Kesha is. Dean closes his eyes for a brief respite, reaching up to turn the radio down to a low hum and rolling the windows down at the same time in favor of the ambient sound of the woods. A lone truck passes through, rattling too close to the concrete barricades on the centerline that block the usable road from the side under construction, startling him. After the truck passes, Dean closes his eyes again, thinking _just for a minute_.

It feels so nice, to relax — to not think about vandals or unpaid bills or Cas. It’s so nice Dean almost fails to notice the complete and total lack of sound. Almost.

He opens his eyes.

The engine is off. The radio is silent. Dean sits up, one hand reaching for the gun in the center console by force of habit. He looks out the front window at the dead stretch of road and out the side window toward the trees. There are no birds signing anymore.

“What the fuck?”

Dean picks up the gun. Simultaneously, the Impala’s engine starts and the radio is back on, playing “Killing in the Name” on a different station. Dean punches the button to turn it off.

“What the fuck?” he repeats, louder and angrier. _You need to sleep, Winchester,_ he thinks.

His gun’s still clutched in his right hand, and if Dean learned anything in his six years as a cop, lesson number one is you don’t wave around a firearm when you’re nervous. He places the gun on the passenger seat, taking deep, calming breaths. In, hold, out — like his dad taught him.

 _Sleep deprivation_. He can hear Sam’s voice droning on and on. _It causes you to see and hear things that aren’t there._

Dean rubs a hand down his face, pulling at his tired eyes. He looks at his watch. 4:37. Twenty-three minutes till Sam calls. He rests his shaky hands on the steering wheel and reminds himself he’s faced down criminals, stared down the barrel of a gun. So maybe his car turned itself on and off. Big deal. That’s nothing compared to the things he’s lived through.

With the radio off, he hears the birds. They’re singing again.


	4. Night 07

**Night 07, 11:46 p.m.**

Cas shows back up, this time at a more reasonable hour.

He pulls off the road and onto the shoulder next to the Impala, and Dean’s heart rate speeds up as he watches Cas get out of the Continental, a dark blot moving against the backdrop of the night. He’s not surprised when Cas opens the passenger door and clambers inside, but Dean jumps nonetheless. _Jesus_. Although he didn’t see anything — or hear anything — strange last night, he’s still spooked.

But his heart isn’t bouncing in his chest, his hands aren’t clammy, his mouth isn’t dry because he’s afraid of the dark. No, what Dean’s afraid of is sitting right in front of him, wrapped in a worn trench coat and tousled bedhead and carrying a box of donuts from Ellen’s. _Damn Cas_. He knows full well Dean can and will eat Ellen’s donuts for every single meal of the day plus snacks. He’s not often a walking stereotype of a cop, but there are some exceptions.

Cas shoves the box at Dean, then, as if realizing at the last second he moved too fast, he pulls it back slightly. Dean takes it anyway. He’s super pissed at Cas, sure, but he’s also pretty friggin’ hungry.

He stuffs half of a bear claw in his mouth before Cas can say anything. Cas watches with an odd, almost longing expression on his face. Maybe he wanted the bear claw. _Well, screw him_. Dean scowls at Cas around his mouthful.

“You said you’re here every night,” Cas says. The bags under his eyes grew, Dean notes. It’s dark in the Impala, even with the dash lit up and the headlights on, muting the full force of those sad blue eyes. “I thought maybe we could talk?”

Dean swallows a lump of cinnamon-flavored dough.

“I don’t know what there is to talk about.” Once again, his voice betrays him. He meant to sound hard and cold, like Clark Gable telling Vivien Leigh frankly he doesn’t give a damn, but it comes out anguished — like he’s the Scarlet O’Hara in this version, which sucks because he hates her. He hates the whole friggin’ movie, actually, but at least the “don’t give a damn” line is cool.

Cas tilts his head, a familiar move it hurts to see.

“Of course we have things to talk about. We — I have so much to tell you, Dean...”

Dean rattles the box.

“Thanks for the donuts, Cas, but like I said last time — I’m working.”

Cas looks out the window. Dean tries not to stare too hard at his profile, but it’s a nice one, and he can’t help admiring Cas’s jaw line with a touch of resentment.

“I can help you,” he says. “I can watch for vandals, too.”

“Cas —”

“Please, Dean, I —” Cas clenches his fists, an anxious habit of his. “I’m trying, here.”

Dean scoffs. A line of three or four cars blows by. He wishes he were in one, driving away from this conversation.

“You sure didn’t try for the last nine months.”

“I know,” Cas admits.

“Yeah, I’m sure you do know. I’m sure you read the dozens of texts and listened to all the voicemails, and you decided every time, ‘Hey, you know what’s not important to me? Letting my so-called best friend know I’m fucking alive.’”

Dean hits the steering wheel with the base of his palm, not feeling guilty he hurt Baby, and Cas jumps. He’s kept this anger covered up for the better part of the past year, choosing to go the route of _who’s Cas? I don’t know him_. It never worked, though. He missed Cas every damn day for months, till his heartbreak morphed into anger, settling into something dangerously close to hatred.

It’s hard to hate Cas the closer he gets, though, and he’s pretty damn close right now — less than a foot away from Dean, angling his whole body toward him, pleading.

“I know, Dean; I know I messed up. But if you’d let me explain why I...”

Dean sets the donuts down on the seat between them, a pathetic attempt at a barrier.

“I don’t want your explanations,” Dean says. “I want you to leave. I don’t care if you’re back for good. I don’t care where you’ve been. Hell, I don’t care if you go back to wherever you were and don’t come back here at all.”

“Dean —” Cas says, shocked and hurt.

“Oh, fuck off.” Dean glares at him, hoping Cas can make out enough of his expression to read how dead serious he is, but not enough to see his watery eyes. “You don’t get to drop out of everyone’s lives then just pick right back up where you left off. That’s not how this works. Sam might buy it, this whole ‘let me bring you food and tell you a good story about where I’ve been’ act. Everyone else might buy it. But not me. I’m the one who almost filed a fucking missing persons report for you, Cas. I’m the one who took the call telling me I could go straight to hell.”

Cas gapes at him.

“Is that what Gabriel said to you?” he asks, choked.

“Close enough,” Dean mutters. He wishes he told Cas and his donuts to turn around and go the second they got in the Impala, but Dean has a weakness for both fried pastries and his former best friend/unrequited crush.

Also, he’s still a little freaked out by the events of the other night, and he doesn’t want to be alone. But Dean will face the unseen terrors of Highway 9 by himself if the other option is sitting here trying to keep it together in front of Cas and failing miserably. God, Dean needs to cry, but he also needs to walk another round along the construction site to make sure the equipment stays undamaged. And Cas needs to leave so he can do both.

“That’s not at all what I told him to say,” Cas says, and Dean debates the best way to get him to go. “I told him to tell you the truth. You don’t have the full picture if he didn’t... I don’t understand why —”

In the middle of Cas’s sentence Dean spots it again. A thin, flickering line of yellow, dropped through the dark out of nowhere. This time it’s halfway down the valley, right over the second bridge on the side of the closed side of the road. Dean throws out a hand and grabs Cas’s arm. Cas stops talking.

“Do you see that?” Dean asks, low and urgent.

Cas leans up, unconsciously getting closer to Dean. Just like old times.

“What is that?” Cas says, his gaze riveted to the bridge. Dean’s first thought smacks of relief — _I’m not sleep deprived, not hallucinating —_ his second thought is _oh shit, it’s real._

The light seems... brighter, now. Wider, too. Like it was simply a thread before, but now it’s stretching into a whole ball of yarn.

“I don’t know. It was here a few nights ago, down there.” Dean gestures to the far end of the valley. “I tried to run to it and it disappeared.”

“Perhaps it’s a flashlight of some sort?”

Dean reaches for his gun, and Cas looks up at him, wide-eyed.

“Not fucking likely.”

Dean pushes open the driver’s side door, leaving Cas in the Impala as he draws his gun, advancing to the bridge. There’s no hope of making it unseen, not with his headlights illuminating him from behind, so Dean calls out, “STOP, POLICE!” although that’s bullshit with no badge to back it up.

He registers Cas following him, but he refuses to turn around, keeping his eyes on the light. There’s a car coming down the hill at the other end of the valley, and it seems urgent Dean reach the light before it does. He jogs, gun drawn and held down and to the side, years of training kicking in.

As he gets closer Dean notices a few things — one, the sound of Cas’s footsteps falling behind him, _that idiot_ ; two, the car isn’t slowing down at all, not even for the driver to gawk at the miniature sun growing on the bridge; and three, the light is pulsing, blinking in time with the thundering beat of Dean’s heart.

He reaches the bridge and gapes as the car blows past, unnoticing and unaffected, the driver turning to look curiously at Dean and Cas standing alone on a deserted road in the middle of the night. He’s probably going to call the cops on them, and Dean’s not sure how to explain this to Jody.

Cas stands transfixed next to Dean, who’s surprised to see the other man staring at the light with a beatific smile on his face. Cas starts to walk.

“Cas? Cas!” Dean scrambles to switch his gun to his non-dominant hand, reaching out for Cas’s trench coat sleeve and missing. Cas continues forward, unblinking, eyes fixed on the light.

“Don’t!” Dean shouts out, managing to catch up and grab Cas’s arm, but Cas yanks it back, unyielding, not looking at Dean. “Cas, we don’t know what it is!”

The light pulses faster, like a strobe at a club, distorting the highway around them, hurting Dean’s eyes. Cas doesn’t blink, and Dean tries to pull him back again. The light unfurls in front of them, wrapping around the concrete barricade and crossing over into the second lane of the road.

“What the fuck?!” Dean shouts, incredulous — and then he hears the hum.

It’s low, guttural — almost like this video Sam showed him on YouTube of all these tuba players sounding off in the lowest key possible. But this is worse. Malicious, almost. It covers everything else — Cas’s footfalls, Dean’s heavy breathing, the cicadas screaming in the trees. The hum is all he hears.

Cas is too close to the light for comfort and showing no sign of stopping, so Dean does the one thing he can think of, which is to throw his gun down and full-body tackle Cas into the road like a goddamn linebacker making a sack.

Cas goes, “ _Umpf!”_ and Dean hits his right shoulder, hard, and the light goes out. It doesn’t sputter, doesn’t blink. It vanishes like it was never there at all, and they’re surrounded by darkness again, with the exception of the Impala’s headlights in the distance and the moon shining through the night’s wispy clouds.

Dean landed on top of Cas, covering him from head to toe, and it says a lot about what he just experienced that he’s in no hurry to move.

“Cas?” Dean brings his hands up to frame Cas’s face. Cas scrunches his eyes shut and groans. “Hey man, talk to me!”

Cas blinks and looks at Dean, eyes narrowed.

“Wha — What was that?”

Dean breathes out a sigh of relief and rocks back on his heels, grabbing Cas’s hand to pull him into a seated position.

“You were acting like you were hypnotized or something,” he says. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you ‘don’t go into the light?’”

Cas rubs the back of his head, wincing. Dean grimaces in understanding. He did tackle Cas pretty hard, straight into the asphalt.

Well, he kind of deserved it.

“I heard something,” Cas says, “and I don’t remember much after that. It was beautiful, though. Some strange melody....” He trails off.

“What?” Dean asks, incredulous, thinking back to the sound he heard. It was no melody. “Cas, it sounded like the horns at the gates of hell or something. Like that fucking thudding noise from _Inception_ but even louder and more obnoxious.”

Cas squints at him, confused, and moves to stand up. Dean follows suit. They both turn to the spot on the road where the light vanished. Dean doesn’t see any sign it was there at all, but Cas abruptly reaches out and grabs his hand, pointing to the center of the road.

A whole chunk of the concrete divider is — gone. Nothing but a hole in the wall left in its place, right where the light went through it.

“I’d like to go to the car,” Cas says quietly, as if he speaks softly enough the light won’t hear him.

Dean squeezes his hand without thinking, feeling Cas’s bones beneath his fragile skin. He feels like his stomach’s trying to crawl its way out of his throat.

“Okay, yeah, yeah, okay.”

By some silent, mutual agreement, they run back to the Impala.

 ///

 

**1:03 a.m.**

“So you saw a similar phenomena three nights ago?” Cas asks, for what must be the third or fourth time. He clutches the water bottle Dean shoved in his hands over an hour ago, still not drinking despite Dean insisting several times he needs to. He looks pale, sweaty. Dean glances up at the rearview mirror. He’s in the same boat.

“Yeah,” Dean says, swallows. “But nothing happened. It sure as hell didn’t eat a slab of concrete. And it didn’t sing, either.”

Cas rubs at the label of the water bottle with his thumb and bites his lip.

“This — Could this be a mutual hallucination?”

“Uh, dude — I never said anything to you about this. How could it have gotten into your head to see the exact same light at the exact same spot?”

Dean doesn’t say he wishes they were hallucinating. It would be a hell of a lot easier to stomach that than to accept there’s a light on the highway erasing things from existence.

“Right,” Cas says uneasily. “An excellent point.”

They both stare out the front windshield at the bridge. No cars have passed in the last hour.

“Cas, I know it gets kind of hazy on you, but do you remember anything other than hearing the song? Like...” Dean pauses, tries to think of this like the detective he used to be and not like a frightened, poorly paid night security guard in over his head. “Do you remember what you were feeling, when you heard the song?”

Cas glares at him.

“That’s your interrogation voice.”

Throwing his hands up in the air in frustration, Dean says, “Cas, I’m trying to be practical! Besides, you owe me an interrogation in more ways than one, so wouldn’t you rather I ask about this than about why you...” _Why you abandoned me_ tries to come out, but Dean shoves those words down. Too raw. Too honest. “About everything else.”

Cas’s expression softens.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” he says earnestly, and Dean looks away before he can ask “Where were you?” If Cas didn’t care to tell him anything back then, Dean doesn’t care to know now. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

“I want to know what you were thinking when you heard the melody, or whatever. On the bridge.”

Cas seems disappointed in Dean’s choice of question.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I remember hearing the song and thinking, ‘Wow, that’s beautiful.’ Then...” Dean looks over at him, and Cas shrugs. “I needed to hear it better, I suppose? I think that’s what I was thinking when I started walking toward it.”

Dean rubs a hand down his face, weary.

“Okay. So if we see it again tonight, you’re staying in the car.”

Dean’s shocked he’s considering letting Cas stay, but he’s also not sure Cas would leave if he asked. The path of least resistance is easier at this point. He’s too tired to fight.

“What if next time it sings to you instead?” Cas asks, and there’s the bitchy expression Dean used to know and love. “We should stick together.”

“Technically, you shouldn’t be here at all,” Dean points out. “This is my case, and you’re a civilian.”  
  
“So are you, now. _Technically._ ”

Dean glares at him. Cas glares back, eyes narrowed.

“Fine,” Dean says after several seconds of tense silence. “You wanna get eaten by a light monster? Be my guest.”

The corner of Cas’s mouth quirks up in a smile.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Dean drums his fingers along the dash. “Take a donut at least. And drink some water, for Christ’s sake. You’ll be more appetizing with some food in you. God, you look terrible.”

“So do you,” Cas says mildly, but he does reach into the donut box, and Dean doesn’t need to look to see he’s pulled out a glazed. Cas is predictable when it comes to taste in food.

For a few minutes the only sounds in the car are Cas’s soft chewing noises and Dean’s restless fingers, tapping the dash. Dean feels an itch crawling under the surface of his skin, a tingling sensation in his fingers. He wants to reach out to Cas, comfort him instead of snipping at him, and seek comfort in return. He can’t. They don’t have that kind of relationship anymore.

Cas says, “Do you have any theories? About the light?”

Dean clenches his jaw and surveys the road. Nothing’s out there.

“Thought you might, professor.”

“I teach ancient Greek literature, Dean.”

He gets a small smile from Dean. They used to go back and forth like that all the time. Dean would ask Cas to explain something — usually something stupid like “Tell me how Bush did 9/11, professor” — and Cas would say in the most put-upon voice, “Ancient. Greek. Literature.”

But Dean remembers they’re not friends anymore, and the joke is no longer funny.

“No, I don’t have any theories,” he says. “Other than someone’s screwing with us in a major way.”

Cas says, “Yeah,” unconvinced, and Dean tries not to worry about how neither of them believe _someone_ is behind this and not some nefarious _something_.


	5. Night 08

**Night 08, 2:32 p.m.**

“Why did you leave the sheriff’s office?” Cas asks out of nowhere.

When Cas pulled up at 10:30 tonight, Dean felt like he’d been waiting for him. They haven’t spoken much, listening to the radio in strained silence, watching the road and eating out of the bag of potato chips Cas brought.

Dean wants to tell Cas to go home, but he also doesn’t want to, not at all. Cas stayed with him last night until the sun came up as morning broke, and now he’s here again and Dean feels conflicted. Still pissed, yeah, but also grateful he’s not alone.

Dean doesn’t owe Cas anything, because two nights of partnership don’t erase nine months of loneliness, but they’re alone on a dark highway waiting for an otherworldly light to show up and possibly consume them, so he answers.

“Sam got into trouble right after you left.” He closes his eyes. Dean hates talking about this. “Ruby came back from rehab, and they got into their old shit. She brings out the worst in him, man.” Cas listens without comment. “They were arrested for possession of a controlled substance, intent to distribute.”

Dean feels Cas’s eyes on him, but he refuses to look back at him.

“After the booking Gordon went on this rant in front of the whole office, saying they were two no good, piece of shit rich kids, even though he knows full well that’s complete bullshit. I mean, he _knows_ I raised Sam with next to nothing. Hell, Ruby’s family might be well off, but they treat her like shit. I agreed they needed to face the music, but I told him he couldn’t talk about my brother that way, and... And no one else said anything. Not Jody or Benny or Jo. So it came to blows, right there in the office. Benny pulled us apart, and Jody suspended us both. I was so pissed I quit on the spot. Hotheaded reaction, sure, but...” He pauses. Cas reaches toward him, like he wants to rest his hand on Dean’s shoulder, but Dean stiffens and Cas puts his hand back down on the seat between them. “It was a rough time in general for me.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas says, for what must be the hundredth time. Dean wonders what he’s apologizing for now. Leaving without telling anyone, including Dean? Sam falling back into addiction? Dean walking out on his dream job?

“Yeah, well.” He roots around in the chip bag. “Sammy got parole, but he lost his internship at the D.A.’s office, so now he’s here busting tables at Ellen’s and trying to get everyone to trust him again. And me, well...” He waves his hands to indicate the Impala and the highway in front of him. “I traded a great job for this. A glorified security guard gig. If it weren’t for Bobby and Rufus asking me to watch their equipment, I wouldn’t have made rent this month. And if they finish up within the next month like they’re supposed to, I won’t be able to make rent for the month after next.” Dean laughs bitterly, adding, “At least I get to drive my baby, though. So there’s that.”

“Dean,” Cas says quietly, “I don’t think it was stupid to quit. Those people are your friends. You felt betrayed by them.”

Dean rubs a hand down his face, pulling at the skin. He’s so exhausted. “I should be used to that by now, huh?”

“Dean,” Cas says again, and _great_ , now he sounds all wounded, “I told you, it’s not a secret. I’ll tell you anything —”

“I’m gonna stop you right there. I don’t care.” He very much does care, but Dean is also very tired of caring. “You can do this, stay out here with me, if it makes you feel better, if it makes you feel like you’re tipping the scales back toward your side. But I don’t want to talk about us.”

As soon as the word “us” is out of his mouth, Dean knows he can’t take it back. _Us_. With one word, he clarified for Cas exactly why his disappearing act hurt so much — Dean wanted there to be an _us_ , and there never was.

Cas doesn’t respond. At all. They don’t speak for the rest of the night, and the light doesn’t show up again.


	6. Night 09

**Night 09, 5:00 a.m.**

Cas doesn’t come back.

Dean should have expected that. Still, he keeps one eye on the road looking out for Cas’s big gold car, the other eye looking for the light.

Dean’s still pissed at Cas for leaving in the first place, and he’s more pissed he’s waited like an idiot all night for Cas to show back up. He’s also pissed he’s trying to come up with reasonable explanations for why Cas isn’t here — maybe his ultra-unreliable car broke down again, maybe he has to sleep to prep for whatever normal teaching job he has these days.

Or maybe he’s upset Dean won’t let him explain, and he’s given up on their relationship. Again. Which should be a relief, right? If Cas stays away, maybe Dean will get over him, a feat he hasn’t managed in the past nine months.

Dean stretches out in the front seat of the Impala, trying to count the number of black cars passing by, trying to make it into a game — whichever direction of traffic has more black cars wins.

But his brain keeps circling back to Cas.

The last time they saw each other, before Cas showed up on Highway 9 in the middle of the night, was at the stupid Halloween Gala the university throws every October 31st. Dean, despite his marked disinterest in balls and penguin suits, somehow gets to dragged to it every year — first by his ex, Bela, a regent for the school; then by Sam when he was a pre-law student at the university; and finally by Cas.

He wanted to go with Cas, though. They danced around each other for almost a year, at least in Dean’s head, and he thought the invitation was a breakthrough. Unlike Sam, Cas made no mention of introducing Dean to any of the TAs, no sly innuendos about the attractive co-eds dressing to impress. Cas said, “I’d enjoy your company more than that of any of those dull bastards,” and won Dean over.

So Dean put away his Indiana Jones costume (complete with whip, which he bought with a few specific fantasies in mind) and rented a tuxedo, all for Cas. It was worth it, because Cas looked fucking fantastic in his own tux, so much so Dean could barely take his eyes off him the entire night. He made a lot of dorky literary jokes and talked shit about the university president, Michael, in low whispers to Dean, and Dean loved him.

Looking back, Dean thinks love is what did him in. He loved Cas, and it was so obvious everyone in the damn room probably noticed. And it scared Cas away.

As they took a breather in the hallway outside the ballroom, Dean felt sure Cas was going to kiss him for the first time. They were both a little tipsy, loosely holding their plastic champagne flutes, leaning against the wall and talking close. Dean did a cruel impression of Cas’s dean, an uptight stick-in-the-mud named Naomi, and Cas actually laughed.

Laughs from Cas were rarer than any precious diamond, and Dean guarded the ones he earned every bit as jealously. Most Cas laughs came out as little huffs of air accompanied by a small smile, but this — his whole face lit up. Cas threw his head back and belly-laughed, his eyes crinkling, his smile wider than Dean had ever seen it. And Dean loved him, and when Cas stopped laughing he didn’t stop smiling. He did lean forward, and Dean thought _this is it_.

But Bela showed up.

Dean’s tried not to hate her for everything that happened _after_ _Cas_ , because he and Bela’s entire, brief relationship and their much lengthier friendship is built upon giving each other shit. But he can’t help but think if she hadn’t interrupted, Cas would have kissed him and everything would be different.

But she did interrupt. Bela swung out of the ballroom doors as Dean’s eyes drifted closed in preparation for a life-changing kiss, and she said, in the most scandalized voice, “Oh, I didn’t realize the two of you snuck off together. Am I interrupting something?”

The effect was immediate. Cas took a step back, Dean clenched his fists in frustration, and Bela laughed drunkenly.

“Sorry boys,” she said, fake pouting. “I promise not to kiss and tell. Or watch you kiss, then tell.”

“You’re mistaken,” Cas said smoothly. “You saw nothing. And I believe you, Ms. Talbot, are drunk.”

“Sure am,” Bela crooned, holding out her arm in Dean’s direction. “Walk me back in?”

So Dean, confused and more than a little hurt by Cas’s abrupt change in demeanor and easy deflection, helped Bela back into the ballroom and directed her to her group of fancy donor friends. He tried to find Cas again, unsuccessfully, for a good ten minutes.

He finished the night drinking with Cas’s fellow professor and friend Balthazar at the open bar till Cas showed back up to drive Dean home. He waited for an explanation, or better yet a second shot, but Cas kept quiet until they reached Dean’s apartment building.

“Do you want to come in?” Dean asked, because alcohol makes him both brave and stupid.

Cas kept his eyes away from Dean’s.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” he said, and Dean’s heart dropped into his stomach. He knew, drunk or not, it was over. There was never going to be a _them_. Cas was never going to kiss him, never going to follow Dean to his room in the dark. They’d never fall into bed together, never wake up next to each other. Cas thought it was shameful, he thought it was unwise. Cas towered above him — super intelligent professor with a small family fortune beats low-paid detective with a shitty apartment — but at that moment Dean knew how unlikely their friendship was. How it would never go any further.

 _I don’t think that’s wise_ turned into _you’re not good enough_ in Dean’s head, and he couldn’t shake the thought away. All that time they might have been building up to something, and Dean watched it come crumbling down when Cas refused to meet his eyes.

He can’t remember if he told Cas goodnight or not as he stumbled out of the car, but he remembers Cas said, “Goodbye, Dean.”

And he left. Cas took off without telling Dean where he’d gone, and Dean’s already broken heart shattered. The university called it a “leave of absence for personal reasons,” got someone else to finish Cas’s classes for the semester, and refused to tell Dean anything. Sam and Bobby and Jo and Benny tried to help pick up the pieces, but there was only so much they could do. Dean played big and lost. He lost by such a large margin he drove Cas out of town and drove himself deeper into the bottle than he’d been since Dad died.

And Cas came back, but Dean knows better. It’s what he tells himself as he counts black cars and waits for the light. _You know better_. Cas isn’t worth another nine months of loneliness, self-loathing and misery. He decided Dean wasn’t good enough the moment someone of his caliber spotted them together, and he ran. He’s earned no second chances.

Dean also theoretically knows better than to wait for Cas to stop by with donuts and a plan for getting rid of this matter-eating light, yet here he is, as always — waiting.

And Cas doesn’t come back. Neither does the light.


	7. Night 10

**Night 10, 3:42 a.m.**

“Highway to the danger zone!” Dean runs and slides through the loose gravel at the edge of the roadway, putting on his own personal concert. “I’ll take you ridin’ into the danger zoneeee! Highway to the danger zone; gonna take you right into th—” He trails off as his flashlight catches the top half of the window of the road roller’s cab. It’s open.

Dean cuts off his performance, approaching the roller with caution. He walked by here an hour ago on his last overview of the equipment, and he’s positive the window was closed.

He climbs the little two-step ladder and aims the flashlight through the open window and into the cab, sweeping the beam over the steering column, the drive shaft, and the empty seat. Dean reaches for the door handle and jiggles it. Unlocked. He pulls the handle, jumping down from the ladder to get the door all the way open, and climbs back up and into the cab.

Dean sits in the seat and checks over the rest of the cab. Nothing seems to be out of place other than the empty, crushed coffee cups littering the floor. Whoever operates the roller during the daytime hours is a friggin’ slob. Dean pushes the window back up and pulls on the door handle to get out.

It’s stuck.

He pulls again, harder this time, bracing one foot against the dashboard and pushing his body up to put more weight on the handle. Though it’s still unlocked, the handle is somehow jammed.

“Friggin’ used equipment,” he mumbles as he tries to pull the window back down to climb out. “Cheapskate Bobby...”

The window sticks. Dean huffs an annoyed breath, pushing at it with both hands. But no matter how hard he tugs at it, it won’t budge. Dean hits the window in frustration, causing his hand to smart when he pulls it back. Grimacing, he reaches up to try to open it again.

Still stuck.

Dean thumps his head back against the seat, wondering how best to make this call to Bobby — _“Hey, so the roller cab window was open and I wanted to check it out, but there was nothing in there and now I’m stuck inside it. Can you come let me out?”_ He can hear the _“You idjit”_ and string of curse words he’ll receive in response to that phone call.

He considers calling Rufus instead, but he thinks of when the Impala broke down in front of Rufus’ house one time after Dean had a late night at the office. He walked up and rang the doorbell to ask for help, and Rufus answered in a bathrobe, holding a shotgun. An unpleasant experience for them both.

As he’s about to call Bobby, the cab light turns on.

Dean looks up at it, startled, and the light blinks.

“What the —”

The engine turns on, coughing and sputtering as the roller comes to life. Dean, done with the idea of waiting on Bobby to help him out, throws his shoulder into the window. It doesn’t crack an inch.

The roller starts to roll.

“No,” Dean says, though he’s not sure what he’s saying no to. “No, no, no, no, no!”

The workers left the roller parked on a slight incline, so it picks up speed as it moves over the gravel, headed straight for a row of three skid steer loaders, parked right in front of the generator.

Dean reaches for the ignition to pull at the key, but there is no key. He reaches for the drive shaft, but it’s in park. He pushes on the brake, and the roller doesn’t slow down at all.

“Fuck!” Dean leans back, swiveling to push his back against one end of the cab, and he lifts his legs, pounding at the window with his feet. “Come on, come on —”

The window breaks, and at the exact same second the roller comes to an abrupt stop, tossing Dean into the floor of the cab. He lays there, stunned and dumbfounded, before he realizes — _this fucking machine turned itself on and off, it could do it again_ — and he picks himself up and scrambles out through the broken window, unmindful of the glass shards poking into his palms.

Dean falls head over ass to the gravel below, landing sprawled out on his back. He rolls away from the wheels of the road roller, out onto the still-unfinished stretch of the highway. His back hurts, his hands are bleeding, and he’s freaking out a little — okay, maybe a lot — but he resists the urge to run like mad for the Impala and drive away, never to return. Dean stands up and evaluates the scene.

The road roller is off — engine quiet, lights out, stopped a few feet short of the skid steer loaders. Other than its broken window and new parking spot, it looks like the rest of the equipment — parked, silent, not deadly in the least.

Dean thinks of the Impala turning itself off a few nights ago. He wrote it off as nothing, a temporary mechanical problem, but with the light and the roller and this feeling of eyes on the back of his neck he can’t shake... Dean shudders.

He dropped his flashlight in the roller, and he’s not getting back in there, so Dean uses his phone to illuminate the area, walking around the roller and looking for any sign someone else was there, a sign of kids pulling a stupid prank, but he can’t see any.

 Feeling like he’s done the most he can do, now Dean does run for his car.

 ///

 

**5:55 a.m.**

“You’re saying the roller did what now?”

Dean rubs a hand over his tired eyes. He sat in the Impala all night, not making any more rounds, twitchy and terrified and trying to talk himself down. He didn’t think to prepare an explanation for an incident he can’t explain, and Rufus isn’t taking the truth well, _of fucking course_.

“Rufus, I don’t know, it — Man, I’m telling you, it turned itself on and started rolling,” Dean repeats for the third time. Around them the early morning crew members are climbing up on their equipment, fastening on their hard hats, drinking their morning coffee. God, Dean would kill for a coffee right now. “There was no key in the ignition, it wasn’t in drive, the brakes didn’t work, the door wouldn’t open —” Dean trails off, trying to think of how to say what he has to say without getting his ass fired. “Rufus, you gotta call the crew off for today. Whatever’s going on here, it’s not safe for them to be working with equipment that might have been tampered with.”

Rufus raises his eyebrows, and Dean braces himself.

“ _Might_ have been tampered with? _Might_? What you just described was goddamn _Christine_ , Dean. Machinery doesn’t turn itself off and on with nothing in the ignition! Look — Dean, I’ve known you since you were a kid. Bobby hired you because you’re a good detective and a good man, and I let him do it, nepotism aside, because I agreed. But this, what you’re doing, isn’t detective work.” Dean swallows hard and looks away. “This is crazy talk. Now, I’m going to need you to do your job and investigate the tampering that _is_ happening around here, not to give me some spook story and tell me to call off a multi-million dollar job.”

The thing is, Rufus is right — it sounds insane. It sounds insane, but it happened, and Dean doesn’t know how to convince anyone. Anyone except Cas, who saw for himself.

“Just for today, Rufus,” he says, deciding to go for a more measured approach. “Let me get a mechanic out here to check everything out. There are remotes that can control cars, maybe that’s what’s happening.” Dean wishes. “I’ll let them sign off on all the equipment, and your guys can get back to work first thing tomorrow.”

Rufus may be gruff, and he may put on a hard face for anyone who happens to look his way, but Dean knows he cares about his men. He can see it in the way the old man’s eyes soften, hears it in the deep sigh he lets out. Dean hasn’t won the war, but he won this battle.

“Fine,” Rufus says. “One day, Winchester. You get Ash out here — he’s the mechanic who found the cut brake line — and you have him look everything over top to bottom. Tonight I expect you to get back to the real world and do some goddamn detective work and catch the guy who’s messing with my site.”

“Yes sir,” Dean says, because it’s easier than arguing. “I’ll call Ash right now.”

Rufus walks back to his crew, yelling out, “Listen up, slackers! Thanks to Detective Winchester, you have been granted a brief reprieve! Everyone’s goin’ home for the day!”

A cheer goes up, and Dean turns his back on the crew so Rufus won’t look over and catch him smiling.


	8. Night 11

**Night 11, 8:45 p.m.**

Dean’s not expecting to see Cas ever again because disappearance is his M.O. Step one, get into an awkward situation with Dean. Step two, bolt. So he’s not waiting around, he’s really not, when Cas pulls up next to the Impala.

“Cancelled my night class,” Cas says by way of explanation as he slides into the passenger seat, passing over a full In-N-Out bag. Dean ate two hours ago and his stomach is unsteady from a mix of nerves and irritation, but he takes the bag anyway. An Animal-style burger with fries. Cas knows him well.

“I didn’t think you would come back,” Dean admits as Cas bites into his own burger.

Grease dribbles down Cas’s chin. Dean waits as his wipes it away with a paper napkin.

“I was angry,” Cas says, and he looks at his burger, not at Dean. “Because I want to explain myself to you, and you won’t let me. But I realized you owe me nothing, and I have nothing for you but poor excuses. So. Here I am, trying to earn my way back into your good graces.”

Dean lifts up his bag of untouched food.

“Cas, you can’t buy me back with burgers and donuts,” he says, irritated. “That’s pretty fucking insulting, actually.”

“N— No, you misunderstand,” Cas says, tripping over his tongue in his haste to explain. “The food is extraneous. I’m here to help you with your —” He waves a hand out toward the highway and the travelers making their way back home after late nights at the office. “Whatever is happening here. You shouldn’t have to figure this out alone. I don’t want you to be alone out here.”

“I’m a professional. And I can call Sam any time,” Dean says, though he can’t. Part of Sam’s parole is a set curfew, and the kid won’t break it for anything. Dean won’t ask him to, either, because he knows getting off parole and getting back to school means everything to Sam. “Or Jo. Or Benny. Or Jody.”

“And tell them what, exactly?”

“I don’t know.” Dean crumples the top of the bag in his fist. “But they’d be more reliable than you, even if they didn’t believe a word I had to say.”

Cas lets out a soft, defeated sound, and Dean knows he hit him where it hurts. _Good_ , he thinks, though a part of him aches to take it back.

“I’ll be here every night, Dean,” Cas says, and he looks Dean in the eyes. Dean stares back, keeping his gaze hard, his body rigid. He’s not going to give in to Cas so easily this time around. “I have to keep up my class schedule at Central —” And Dean resists asking why Cas isn’t back on faculty at the university, why he moved back to teach at the community college in Winston. “— but after my night classes, I’ll come straight here. I’ll show up until you tell me to stop coming, or until I prove to you I’m not leaving you again.”

 _Leaving you_. Dean wonders if Cas has any idea what he makes them sound like — partners, lovers, a goddamn couple. Things they never were.

Dean wants to tell him to leave, to stay gone for good. But he can’t. He opens his bag up and bites hard into a handful of fries. At least with his mouth full he can’t say something stupid, like _I missed you_ or _Why did you leave me?_

Cas waits, and when Dean finishes swallowing, he says, “Fine, you can stick around. But only ‘cause you’ve see it, and if I explain this shit to anyone else I’ll lose all my credibility.”

“Fair enough.” Cas’s voice is mild once Dean’s given him permission to stay. He pulls his shoulder bag off and sets in the floorboard, rummaging around stacks of ungraded essays and loose-leaf paper to pull out a small notebook. Dean watches, still chewing, as he flips through the notebook, landing on a page titled “Unexplained Phenomena” in Cas’s neat block handwriting.

“Oh my god, you didn’t,” Dean says around a mouthful of hamburger, and Cas smiles.

“Research is kind of my thing, Dean,” he says, taking out a pen and pulling the cap off with his teeth.

“Bullshit. You like reading about ancient dead guys, not cruising alien sighting forums.”

“Well.” Cas taps the pen against the page. “I will say this has been an educational experience. So,” he says, circling “mysterious light?” in blue, “I’ve found several other instances of sightings somewhat similar to ours. I looked into some of the more famous instances of inexplicable light phenomena. There are several references to similar lights with standard explanations — the Paulding Light in Michigan or the Marfa lights, for a few examples, are caused by viewing headlights on a distant highway from a certain angle. This seems to be the case with most of these reports.”

“Oh,” Dean says, disappointed. He’d forgotten about the Marfa lights, but as a kid he’d loved the idea of aliens hanging around west Texas. It’s kind of a bummer to have that childhood spook story retroactively ruined.

“However, those theories don’t work here,” Cas says, going into lecture mode, “because Highway 9 is the only major road running through this area, so we’re not seeing a reflection from another highway. I’ve poured over the county maps, and none of the lights from the county roads would be visible from our vantage point because we’re in a valley surrounded by light woods. Also, we saw the light both when no cars were present and when one appeared to drive right next to it.”

“Okay, so. Not headlights.”

“Then, of course, there’s the will-o’-the-wisp.” Cas flips to the next page, and Dean says, heavy with sarcasm, “Of course, always the will-o’-the-wisp.” Cas raises his eyebrows as if to say _may I continue?_ Dean rolls his eyes.

“As I was saying, the will-o’-the-wisp is European folklore referring to mysterious lights seen in the night over the moors. There are many similar ‘ghost lights’ in other cultures as well — it’s referred to as ‘Hitodama’ in Japan, or the ‘Min Min light’ in Australia. Depending on which legend you read, they’re caused by fairies or they indicate where gold is buried or they’re literal human souls, but a common theme with the will-o’-the-wisp is they often lead people to their demise.”

“Oh,” Dean says, “is that all?”

Cas, having completed his transformation into Professor Novak at this point, ignores Dean’s sarcasm and his own dinner in favor of staring out the Impala’s window at the spot on the road where they spotted the light.

“There are many possible scientific explanations, of course,” Cas says, as if he’s trying to convince himself, and Dean knows how he feels. “A combination of the right types of gases or the glow off of certain fungi. You know, they’re seen much less in England with the degradation of the moors. So...”

“Cas,” Dean says, “there’s no fucking swamp here. There’s a dry creek bed and a highway undergoing major construction. And that’s it.”

“A reflection off the equipment, perhaps?” If Cas heard Dean, he’s not acknowledging him. “I could set up a refractor, attempt to recreate —”

“Cas,” Dean says again. “You heard singing. I heard — Fuck, I don’t even know. And it isn’t just the light, man. It’s equipment being fucked with or going missing. It’s me getting into the roller —” Dean points down to the far end of the valley, where the roller is sitting. “— and it starting up _by itself_ with no keys in the ignition. It’s Ash examining every machine here and finding _nothing_ out of the ordinary. It’s the eyes I feel on me every time I step out of the car to make my rounds at night. This, whatever it is, is more than some reflection or weird chemical reaction.”

Cas closes his notebook. Dean waits for Cas’s big, beautiful brain to reckon with what they’re dealing with, something he can’t research a plausible explanation for.

“What if they’re true,” Cas says quietly, more a statement than a question. “The myths. What if they’re true?”

He looks at Dean, and Dean can’t reassure him, because he’s known since he tackled Cas on the highway that this, whatever _this_ is, is not natural. Cas looks off at the bridge, the point in the road where everything shifted.

“A flame,” he says, “which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends.” He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the seat, reciting from memory, “Hovering and blazing with delusive light, misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way to bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool; there swallowed up and... And lost.”

Cas trails off, and Dean’s heart thuds in his chest. “What the hell was that?”

“John Milton,” Cas says. “From _Paradise Lost_. We had to memorize portions in one of my Lit classes in college. I hated it, but I never forget it.” Cas’s eyes glaze over as he stares back out at the highway. “The light, the will-o’-the-wisp. It was Satan himself.”


	9. Night 12

**Night 12, 3:12 a.m.**

Cas is asleep. He fell asleep two hours ago, head lolling against the window, graded and ungraded papers dropping from his lap to the floor. Dean made one round without waking him up, and it’s almost time to make another, but he can’t stop watching Cas.

It’s stupid. There’s a possibly demonic-in-origin light on the road and it might show up again at any minute. All the foundations of the natural world shifted when the light first dropped out over the bridge, and Dean is watching Cas sleep.

He’s seen it before — Cas fell asleep in the middle of more than one movie night, usually when Dean was responsible for picking the film of choice. He learned pretty quickly that, unlike the majority of the world’s population, Cas enjoys napping during loud action films. He also learned Cas looks so much softer in his sleep.

From the first time they met, Cas stayed on constant edge, worried about something — infighting at the university, an assignment his students botched, the latest paper he needed peer reviewed. Dean prided himself on being Cas’s oasis, the one person Cas turned to when he needed a break. Dean introduced him to the finer things in a life outside of academia — the Roadhouse karaoke nights, making fun of bad movies, Led Zeppelin and an open highway — and in return, Cas let Dean take care of him, something Sam hadn’t allowed in ages.

It was nice to feel needed. Nice to watch Cas sleep and to feel like he’d done something right. Dean thought he was the only person Cas let down his guard around, and Cas became the only person Dean confided to about his deepest insecurities — his worry about his lack of promotion to senior detective, his fear he drove Sam to addiction because he was too overbearing, too much like their father. Cas listened to him and _saw_ him in a way no one else, not even Sam, ever did.

And then Cas left, and Dean hurried to rebuild all the walls he’d brought down during their brief friendship.

Dean wants to shake him awake to prove something, to prove Cas doesn’t hold any kind of sway over him these days. To show he doesn’t care if Cas gets a good night’s sleep, he doesn’t care if Cas exists on a diet of coffee and burgers, he doesn’t care that apparently Cas has lost his dream job, too. But he can’t make himself reach over and touch Cas, and Dean tells himself it’s because he never wants to touch Cas again, not because he cares.

_Yeah. Right._

Dean takes a sip of his coffee and looks out over the road. Not a single car passed by within the last hour, and everything appeared normal and in place the last time he walked the length of the valley. Construction started again since Ash gave the equipment his seal of approval, and they’ve repaved half of the southbound lane. If all goes well, the project will wrap up within the next month-and-a-half, and maybe Dean and Cas can both pretend like they never saw anything strange rising up out of the dark.

The universe clearly likes to fuck with Dean, because as soon as he considers forgetting the ghost light, there it is again.

In the space of the red traffic light changing to green, the will-o’-the-wisp appears not twenty feet in front of the Impala. It glows white, pulsing as Dean stares, mouth open and dry, his heart pounding in his ears.

“Cas,” he whispers, as if keeping quiet might keep the light away, “Cas, wake the fuck up.” Without taking his eyes off the light, Dean reaches out with the hand nearest Cas and slaps him on the knee.

“Mmm?” Cas mumbles, stretching and causing more papers to fall to the floor. He blinks languidly, eyes bleary and hair mussed. “Dean?”

“Cas,” Dean whispers again. “Look out the windshield. Slowly.”

Still sleep-confused, Cas rubs at his eyes, and Dean recognizes when he sees the light by the way he stiffens, sitting straight up in the seat.

“It moved,” Cas says. “Dean, it moved.”

“Thanks, Sherlock.” The light hovers, not growing the way it did last time. Dean notices the radio, which was playing a classic rock station on a low volume, is now off. He swallows. “What do we do? Is there any way to get rid of it?”

“You’re asking me?” Cas whispers, incredulous. “Dean, I teach literature, not —” Cas waves one hand, below the dashboard and out of sight of the light. “Not paranormal investigation!”

“Yeah, and I investigate petty theft, not the supernatural. But you’re the one with the fucking notebook!”

Cas scoots closer to Dean on the bench seat, and Dean’s so stressed he doesn’t bother to act like he doesn’t need Cas next to him.

“In the myths, if you go toward it, you’re lost,” Cas says. “So I suggest we start the car, turn around, and run.”

Dean bites back a cruel comment about how that would be Cas’s best advice, because this time he knows running is the most reasonable thing to do. But the thing is, nothing in Dean is made to run, not even from mythical death lights.

“I can’t leave.” As he says it, Dean knows how stupid it sounds. “I promised Bobby, I can’t —”

“Dean,” Cas says, and Dean prepares for the lecture, the inevitable _some stupid chip spreader is not worth your life_ , but Cas just points.

Dean looks back at the light to see it’s bigger, closer, widening out as he watches. It’s so damn _bright_ now, and he hears it again — a low, steady hum.

“Dean,” Cas says as if he’s in a trance, “it’s singing.”

It’s also moving slowly but steadily toward them, gaining ground a foot at a time. He doesn’t want to run, but he also doesn’t want to wait here until they’re swallowed up or Cas bolts headfirst to his death. He reaches for the keys and turns the ignition.

The engine rolls over once, twice, and sputters.

“Fuck.” Dean jiggles the key again. He hears it trying, his Baby giving her all, but nothing’s working. Cas’s hand moves to the door handle. “Fuck, fuck! Cas, goddamn it!” He flips the lock switch. “You do not open the door, do you hear me?”

Cas leans forward in his seat, eyes on the light as it nears them. The hum grows louder. “Cas! Fucking —”

Dean turns the key, blessed with a miracle for perhaps the first time in his life — the Impala starts. He reaches for the gearshift, ready to throw it into reverse, but the light disappears. It isn’t like last time, where the light was there and gone, vanishing in the blink of an eye. This time, it appears to jerk backwards at the sound of the Impala’s engine, twisting into a tight little coil and springing away. As Dean watches, the light is swallowed by the darkness around it little by little, as if it’s being dragged backwards into the night.

Cas stares out at the spot where the light disappeared, panting. His hands shake in his lap.

“Are you okay?” Dean asks, too spooked to bother with any pretense of anger. He cares, and he can’t help himself. He doesn’t want Cas to get sucked into whatever the fuck this is — will-o’-the-wisp, spook light, apparition. It doesn’t matter. It affects Cas in a weird way, makes him unblinking and unthinking, and Dean’s afraid for him.

Cas’s eyes keep darting to the window.

“I —” he starts, pausing to run a hand over his mouth, an expression he picked up from Dean that means he’s frustrated and worried and searching for the right words. “I wanted to follow it again.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. And it’s a pretty terrible idea, Cas. You know that, right?”

“Obviously,” Cas says with an eye roll. “But it’s a little hard to remember when faced with a literal supernatural entity.”

“So we’re giving up on all the scientific theories already, huh?” Dean almost wishes Cas would keep insisting there’s bog gas at play. “We’re going straight for ghost light, do not pass go, do not collect $200?”

“Dean.” Cas twists in his seat to face Dean head on, and Dean sees the full scope of the fear in his eyes. “It was singing my name.”


	10. Night 13

**Night 13, 9:03 p.m.**

“So the headphones are noise cancelling,” Dean explains, fitting them snugly over Cas’s head and trying to ignore the way his hands get clammy as soon as he’s touching Cas. “Press this button—” He flicks the switch on the side of one of the headphones. “—and you’re good to go.”

Cas tilts his head in confusion, which Dean takes to mean the noise cancelling function works fine. He pulls the headphones off Cas’s head, leaving his hair a mess where they drag through it. Dean resists the urge to run his fingers over the unruly locks by curling them into a fist.

“I feel better about my chances now, thanks to Bose.” Cas pronounces Bose wrong and Dean smiles to himself, deciding not to correct him.

Unless they see the light, these nights all go the same way — Cas grades papers and naps and Dean walks the perimeter of the site, checking on the equipment and keeping an eye out for the ghost light. But tonight Cas didn’t bring papers to grade, and Dean goads Cas into playing car games with him — I Spy (which they both suck at), the Question Game (which Cas excels at), Punch Buggy (Dean can recognize a Bug by their headlights in the distance, so it’s a losing game for Cas).

It’s all a distraction tactic, Dean knows. It helps him forget he’s still pissed at Cas, helps him forget as the night gets the longer the likelihood of the light returning increases. It’s in the back of his mind, but when Cas responds to Dean’s question of “Which planet is your favorite?” with a deadpan “How do you feel about Uranus?” he loses his cool for a bit. He doesn’t remember the last time he laughed so hard. Since before Cas left, probably.

Dean loses the Question Game because he can’t think of a single thing to say in response, and he’s still wiping tears away from his cheeks when he spots familiar headlights waiting at the far end of the road, stuck at the red light.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says, good humor gone.

“What? What is it?”

Dean gestures toward the car, an old Plymouth he bought Sam for his high school graduation.

“My brother,” Dean says, aggravated. “He can’t be here. I don’t want him near this. And he... Fuck, he doesn’t know we’re talking again.”

Dean tries to ignore the hurt look Cas gives him when he says, “You didn’t tell Sam you’ve spoken to me?”

“You’re here to apologize,” Dean says as Sam pulls around behind them, getting a sharp honk from the driver following him as he whips off the road. “We’re working things out. That’s what we say to get him to leave. He’s a sucker for reconciliation. It’s why he wants to go into family law.”

“Are we working things out?” Cas asks, and Dean decides not to respond. Just because they’ve shared a bit of trauma and some laughs in the past few days doesn’t mean he’s ready to hand his heart back over to Cas. No thanks.

Dean sees when Sam spots Cas sitting in the front passenger seat because he does a double take, a wide smile spreading across his face. Dean tries to control his answering grimace as Sam opens the door and slides into the back seat behind Cas.

“Hey Dr. Novak!” Two years removed from being Cas’s student, and Sam is still a teacher’s pet. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Yes, well.” Cas smiles, not quite reaching his eyes. “Dean and I have been... working things out.”

Dean would have thought it impossible, but Sam’s smile gets even wider.

“Great!” he says, bouncing in his seat like the over-excited puppy he is. “Hey Dean, maybe Cas can come with us to Bobby’s cookout next week? Like old times?”

Dean remembers the last cookout with Cas. He let Cas take a shot at the grill, and Cas caught the veggie shish kabobs on fire. He also remembers the first cookout after Cas left, when he got drunk off his ass for the first time in years and ended the night crying into Jo’s shoulder. Sam’s face falls as he seems to recall that stellar moment at the exact same time Dean does.

“Maybe,” Dean says to let Sam off the hook. “Look, we’re kind of in the middle of —”

“Oh, yeah.” Sam brushes his ridiculously long hair away from his face. “Of course. I just wanted to give you some company since I don’t have to work early tomorrow, but if you two...”

Something flickers in the corner of Dean’s eye, and he turns away from Sam to scan the area. Cas shifts in the seat next to him.

“I’ll be right back.” He grabs his flashlight and checks his gun is still in the holster at his hip before exiting the car, letting Sam direct his confused questions to Cas.

Dean doesn’t know what he saw, and as he walks down the shoulder of the road, cars passing by too close for comfort, Dean wonders what he’s supposed to do if he finds what he’s looking for.

They don’t know what the light is. They know what it’s capable of, sure — causing things, and possibly people, to disappear. It’s capable of showing up anywhere, of trying to lure Cas to itself. And the light, or whatever is attached to it, must be behind everything else happening on this stretch of Highway 9 — the roller turning on by itself, the Impala turning off, the damaged brake lines and the sudden silence in the woods.

He thinks of Cas quoting _Paradise Lost_ , his voice rough as he said “there swallowed up and lost.” Swallowed up and lost. Dean casts his flashlight beam over the chip spreader and wonders if that’s meant to be their fate, his and Cas’s. He can’t imagine letting Cas walk into the light, but if he does go, if Dean can’t stop him, he won’t let him go alone.

The red light changes again and more cars, this time from the other direction, begin their journey down the single lane of traffic through the valley. Dean walks with them, then behind them, as he heads back to the Impala.

It’s getting darker, and he barely makes out Sam and Cas’s shadows standing between the Impala and Sam’s Plymouth with their backs to him.

“Sam, it’s unnecessary,” Cas says, and Dean slows his approach. “I don’t need you to repay me. I wanted to —”

“I know, but Doc— Cas, it’s so huge. And I don’t know if Dean has said anything to you about...” Sam’s voice trails off, and Dean watches his dark form shift. “Ruby and I got back together about eight months ago, and I... I got back into all the old stuff.”

“He told me,” Cas says. “Sam, everyone makes mistakes. Look at me, for example. I’m still paying for mine, as I know you’re still paying for yours. I’m happy to help a fellow sufferer.”

“Do you really think they’ll take me?”

“They accepted you once before. And now you have not only a glowing recommendation letter, but also some of that ineffable life experience they’re always going on about.”

“But I’m on parole until December...”

“Apply in the spring. You could start in the fall of next year. Sam, you’re intelligent and ambitious, and we can —”

“We can what?” Dean asks, coming up between them and making his presence known.

They both startle, jumping. It’s difficult to see their faces in the low light, but Sam’s shoulders slump. Cas, on the other hand, draws himself up as if preparing for an argument. Dean crosses his arms over his chest.

“Sam and I were talking about Stanford’s law school,” Cas says, voice even. “He’s thinking of reapplying, and I said I’d write a letter of recommendation.”

“You haven’t been his professor in two years.” Dean looks between the two of them. Sam looks at the ground.

“I’m an alumnus,” Cas says. “It would still help.”

“Right.” Dean could offer up all the reasons he has a problem with that — Cas doesn’t need to help Sam after ditching him, too; Sam needs to be close to home in case he relapses; Dean’s afraid of being alone. He thinks of the light, and he decides now is not the time for arguments. “Look, Sammy, thanks for coming out to keep me company, but —”

“Yeah.” Sam sounds relieved Dean isn’t pressing the college issue. “You and Cas need to talk, I get it. I’ll see you at home.”

“We’ll get breakfast at that smoothie place you like,” Dean says, a consolation prize, and Sam nods.

“It was good to see you, Cas.” Sam walks back to his car, waving goodbye over his shoulder. “Stop by Ellen’s sometime. Coffee is on me!”

“Of course.” Dean doesn’t miss the small smile on Cas’s lips. He used to love it, how easily Sam and Cas got along. Now it makes him feel like the odd man out. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“My break’s at 1,” Sam says, opening the car door and maneuvering his massive bulk into the front seat. “You should come by.” As his head disappears into the car he calls out, “Bye Cas, bye Dean!”

The light on this end is already green, so Sam swings on to the road behind a Ford, waving again as he passes them by. When his taillights disappear over the hill, Dean bites his lip and turns to Cas.

There’s so much unsaid between them, and it all hangs over their heads — Cas leaving, Dean’s continued stubborn refusal to ask for answers, everything that happened with Sam and the department when Cas was gone, everything Cas has been through in the past nine months he hasn’t explained. But there’s one thing they can talk about without raised voices and hurt hearts, and so Dean says, “We should get in the car in case it comes back.”

Cas brows furrows, and Dean waits for him to say something argumentative, to open the floodgates and let out everything they’ve both been holding back since Cas showed up again a little over a week ago.

Instead Cas sighs and says, “You’re right. The engine noise seemed to spook it last time. Maybe if we keep the car running...”

Dean doesn’t bother to say he’s pretty sure this thing interferes with all mechanics, and whether or not the Impala will stay running is up in the air. It’s not like they have anything else to work with.

“We’ll try it.”

Because if Dean’s going to remain stubborn and insist on staying out here until he figures out how to deal with what’s happening, Cas is going to be stubborn and stay with him. His loyalty warms Dean’s frosty demeanor somewhat, but still he doesn’t give in and ask for the truth.

He doesn’t ask why Cas left as they climb into the car. He doesn’t ask why Cas freaked out at the gala as he turns the Impala on. He doesn’t ask why Cas came back as the soft sounds of the radio fill the car. And when Cas looks at him searchingly, Dean keeps his eyes on the road. He doesn’t ask Cas if he ever loved Dean the way Dean loves him. He’s pretty sure the answer is no.


	11. Night 14

**Night 14, 7:57 p.m.**

Cas’s night class at Central ends at 8, so Dean arrives at the site with more than an hour to spare before Cas gets there. He spends the time doing the usual checks of the perimeter, waving to the straggling workers as they pile up in their pick-up trucks and move out.

At one point he thinks he hears something in the edge of the wood, but it turns out to be a cow — one of the bordering farms has a fence down, so Dean calls the sheriff’s office to get someone out to talk to the landowner before more cows escape and get onto the highway, a typical problem for law enforcement in rural Texas.

It’s Jo who answers. Dean consoles himself by thinking, _At least it ain’t Gordon._

“Dean Winchester.” Her voice is warm, with a hint of a reproach underneath. “It’s been a long time.”

“Joanna Beth,” he says, teasing, “I’ve got a loose heifer with your name on it on Highway 9 north of the first Black Creek bridge.”

“As fun as that sounds, I’m actually about to change shifts.” Dean hears her rolling the chair back at her desk. Jo is a fidgeter, in constant motion. When they patrolled together he’d bring her things to play with — Silly Putty, chains of paper clips, rubber balls — so when she got bored during the long hours with no calls she wouldn’t take it out on him. “I’ll send the new guy out.” _Damn_. He kind of wanted to see her. “Hey, what’s going on out there? Bobby told me you’re keeping an eye on things for him. Got any lines on the guy stealing stuff at the site?”

She’s being friendly, Dean knows, but it rubs him the wrong way — like she’s checking to make sure he knows how to do his job, like she doesn’t trust him to do it right.

There was a time when he could tell Jo anything and everything. They grew up together, wrapped up in each other’s lives like so much coiled string, and she was almost as much a part of Dean as Sam. He remembers putting Spiderman Band-aids on her knees when she fell off her bike, Jo bringing him an apple pie with burnt crust the first time he got dumped, kissing her underneath the football stadium bleachers and both of them leaping back and yelping “Ew!” at the same time. He bought her first beer, she helped him study for exams. When they worked together, he trusted her with his life.

But then Sam got arrested and Gordon went on his rant and Jo just... stood there. Not bothering to defend the men who called her their sister. Not defending Sam, and not defending Dean. Everything changed when Cas left, but what stings Dean the most is it wasn’t only Cas he lost.

Dean glances at the messy pile of paper in the seat next to him, the accumulation of his research, and says, “Nah. I think he’s backed off, now that I’m here.”

Jo makes a humming noise, says, “Mmm, yeah, tough guy. I hear you’re not out there alone, though. I mean, I wasn’t expecting a slumber party where we braid each other’s hair and talk boys, but Dean Winchester I _cannot believe_ you didn’t tell me Cas is back. That’s huge news!”

Dean leans his head back against the headrest with a light thud, dreading where this is going.

“Come on, dude, throw me a bone! Where the hell was he? Why’s he back? Did he crawl to you on his hands and knees and beg forgiveness? He better have.”

He doesn’t know the answer to those first two questions, and it irritates him, so Dean snips, “What, did you join the old ladies’ gossip chain or something? If you want to know so bad, ask him yourself.”

Silence, then —

“Dean, I’m... worried. That’s all.” Her voice goes all soft and serious, and she sounds like her mother, which means trouble. “I remember what you were like when he left and —”

“As much as I would love to recap, I gotta run,” Dean says. “Send the rookie out here ASAP, okay?” And he hangs up. He might pay for it later, but he thinks it’s more likely they’ll continue to avoid each other, letting the awkwardness and betrayal build up between them until it’s an insurmountable obstacle. Kind of like his relationship with Cas.

///

 

**9:03 p.m.**

Cas pushes Dean’s research into the middle of the Impala’s seat without a word, dumping his man satchel on the floor at the same time. His hair sticks up around his forehead and curls around his ears, shining and a bit sweaty.

“Rough day?” Dean asks, pushing his papers back into a semi-orderly pile.

“You could say that.” Cas runs a hand across his forehead and points the vents at himself. “My students are... testing me. Rigorously.”

At first Dean takes that statement and Cas’s disheveled appearance and puts them together the way he would with anyone else, and his gut burns with a flash fire of jealousy, imaging some pushy, horny co-ed getting Cas into bed and “testing” him. Then his rational brain takes over and Dean remembers this is Cas, the man who’s familiar with all the Greek philosophers but cannot name a single present day movie star, the man who once asked him with complete earnestness what “pegging” meant. Cas is naïve and literal. The kids are being brats, end of story.

“Wanna talk about it?” Dean asks, surprising himself. He hasn’t offered much to Cas in terms of rekindling their friendship in the past few weeks, preferring to watch Cas flounder as he tries to make up for the wreck he caused. Yet now Dean’s throwing him lifesavers.

“No, thank you.” Cas leans forward, putting his forehead against a vent. “They know I’m new, and they can smell the fear on me. Like animals. It will pass.”  
  
“You’re afraid of them?”

“No, not of them.” Cas cuts his eyes at Dean, holding his gaze with an uncomfortable intensity. “I’m afraid of a lot of things. It doesn’t make any difference in front of a classroom what those things are, they see the fear and assume they can take advantage.”

Dean shouldn’t ask. He should keep up his barriers, learn how to let this thing between them — friendship, love, whatever it is — go. Cas let him go, after all. But he can’t help himself.

“What are you afraid of?”

“You,” Cas says simply. “I’m afraid I’ll never earn your forgiveness, and you’ll always look at me like I’ve betrayed you. I’m afraid I’ll lose you again. I’m afraid if you ever decide you want to hear the truth it won’t be good enough for you.” Dean’s throat constricts and he clenches his jaw. “That’s what I’m afraid of most of the time. Right now I’m afraid of...” He trails off, and looks out the window. “This place. What happens here. Losing myself again, in any way.”

Time to get them away from the topic of their relationship and focus on the task at hand. Dean clears his throat and holds up the papers he gathered. When he speaks, his voice sounds tighter than he’d like.

“This is not gonna help with the last part, but I’ve found some stuff I think might be related to our mystery light.”

He reaches up to flip on the overhead light, illuminating the first piece — a newspaper clipping from 1972, right after the highway was built. “MYSTERIOUS INCIDENTS PLAGUE ROADWAY CONSTRUCTION; HIGHWAY 9 OPENS DESPITE OBSTACLES.”

Cas takes the stack from Dean and raises his eyebrows.

“Weird lights, broken equipment, odd noises,” Dean says to spare Cas the reading. “Sound familiar? Law enforcement at the time chalked it up to pranks by hippies. Then —” Dean reaches over and flips to the next page, ignoring the way his fingers brush against Cas’s. “A week later, the road has its first fatality. On the bridge where we saw the light.”

Cas takes a deep breath and lets it out. “But no one —” He waves his hand through the air.

“Disappeared? Yeah, they did. A farmer out here, an old guy named Martin Creaser who hated how his land got split by the highway. In 1973 he vanished. His wife said he left to go check on the cows in the far pasture. He was planning to walk right across this road. He never came back. She thought TxDOT put a hit on him or something ludicrous.

“But in '94, a teenage runaway was last seen stopping for gas at the old station a few miles up the road. The car behind her reported they recognized her, knew her parents, so they followed her. She crossed into the valley, and they lost her. Never saw her car or her again.”

Cas flips through the pages faster, skimming crash reports and newspaper articles, muttering something under his breath. Counting, Dean realizes.

“I’ve got the numbers, Cas,” he says. “This road is the deadliest in the county. It’s been around for 45 years, with 38 car crash fatalities. Add two sketchy disappearances, and you’ve got 40 people gone. About one per year. And what about the years we can’t account for — who’s to say someone else passing through, someone with no connections, no one to look for them, didn’t go poof, too.” Dean snaps his fingers and Cas jumps. “This highway is a death trap, and I’m starting to think it’s not just because it’s a high-speed, two-lane road.”

“The light is killing people.” Cas pushes the papers back into a pile and stares down at them like they should hold a definitive answer. “That sounds insane, Dean. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, well.” Dean pulls the last scrap, a worn clipping from the local paper, out of his pocket and hands it to Cas. Cas’s eyes widen as he takes in the headline and date.

“Dean, this is —”

“Right there.” Dean points to the top of the hill opposite them, at the edge of the slope leading into the valley. There’s a tree there, standing like a gravestone in his mind — immovable, unshakeable, the last spot where John Winchester drew a breath. “They never knew why he swerved off the road, Cas. You know how I was the one sent out to do traffic control for the wreck? He was still alive when I got there, but... his chest was crushed.”

Cas’s hand comes to rest on his knee, and Dean doesn’t tell him to move it.

The troopers tried to keep Dean back when they realized who he was, tried to tell him how bad off John looked. Dean didn’t listen. He ran to the crumpled truck, dodging firefighters and EMTs to push right up to the broken window on the driver’s side. John’s face was so torn up by broken glass Dean barely recognized him. He’d spent his life believing his old man was invincible — a craggy rock set high on a cliff, perpetually hanging over Dean’s head — but in that moment John was broken. Weak. Dying.

“And when he saw me,” Dean says, voice shaky, “he kept trying to tell me something, but he couldn’t talk.”

John died before the air ambulance could get there, and Dean watched the light go out of his father's eyes. He heard the fucking death rattle. They had to call Jo to the scene to pull him away from his dad’s body, and he clung to the twisted door handle till his fingers bled, Jo whispering words he can’t recall in his ear.

Dean rubs at his eyes, angry he’s started crying but too upset to stop. “I still got no clue what he was trying to tell me.”

"That he loved you, I’m sure,” Cas says, but he doesn’t sound sure. Dean scoffs.

“Yeah. That’s why he pushed me around when I was kid, why he drank all the time after Mom died and missed every important event in my life. ‘Cause he loved me.”

“I think he loved you,” Cas says, voice soft, “but it doesn’t excuse his actions. You deserved far better.”

That’s rich coming from the guy who left Dean behind without a word. Another burst of anger rises in Dean’s chest, this time directed at Cas, and he can’t stop himself from snapping, “You didn’t seem to think I deserved better when you ran out on me.”

“Dean, I —”

“You know what,” Dean says, on a self-righteous roll, “you should stay out of my family’s business, all right? Don’t give me false platitudes and shit about my father, and, while we’re at it, why don’t you leave Sam alone, too? There’s no use in you getting his hopes up, making him think you’re friends.”

“We are friends,” Cas insists with an undercurrent of frustration. “What happened between us has nothing to do with Sam, and if I can help him get him through law school, I will. Whether you’re speaking to me or not, Dean.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, like what the hell Cas means by saying he didn’t abandon Sam, too. But Dean’s stuck on three words.

"'Get him through?’ What the fuck do you mean?”

Cas swallows, caught. Dean doesn’t let up, glaring at Cas, eyes hard and frown set.

“I — I may have set up a fund to help pay for Sam’s expenses once he gets back into Stanford, like I know he will.”

Dean feels this revelation like a kick in the gut, and he’s sure the hurt shows on his face because Cas scrambles to say, “I know the two of you have had a rough time, and I’ve recently received my severance pay from the university —”

“You think I can’t take care of him,” Dean says, and if he thought Cas couldn’t hurt him more, he thought wrong. “You think I’m not gonna support him.”

“No, no, I know you will,” Cas says. “But I know it might cause you undue hardship, and I don’t need the money.”

“Right.” Dean laughs a little hysterically. “‘Cause Stanford tuition is no big deal. You’d do that for anyone.”  
  
Cas scoots across the bench seat, pushing the papers into the floorboard and getting close to Dean. Too close for comfort. He always pushed like this during confrontations — standing right in front of Dean, staring him down until Dean decided to yield. The effect is somewhat muted in the car, but Dean’s breath catches nonetheless.

“Dean Winchester, you stubborn bastard,” Cas says, and Dean tries not to let Cas’s tone of voice go to his groin. “This is not a reprobation of your caretaking abilities, which are spectacular, nor is it something I would do for anyone. I care for Sam, and I want him to have a good education because he deserves a second chance. But I would not be offering these funds to your brother if I didn’t love you.”

A disquieting silence fills the car — not the strange silence of the previous nights when the woods held their breath, but a natural, unsteady silence born of an emotional bomb dropped between two people. Dean feels, oddly enough, almost as frightened and off-balance as he felt when they faced the light.

 _Cas loves him._ It’s everything he wanted nine months ago, but now it’s a mess — a confusing, damaging confession, and it does nothing to ease the ache in Dean’s heart. Because if Cas loves him, it confirms Dean’s worse fear — he’s easy to walk away from and disregard. Even the people who care about him most will leave him.

Cas’s eyes widen and he blinks, shocked at himself. It might be comical if the situation weren’t so fraught.

“Dean, I—”

And although Dean isn’t sure he wanted Cas’s love confession, he knows he doesn’t want Cas to take it back, to clarify he never loved Dean in _that way_. It would drive the knife in deeper, to the point where Dean can’t pull it out and survive. So he cuts Cas off.

“Yeah, I got it.” He doesn’t get it. Dean looks at the road so he doesn’t have to look at Cas while he drives another wedge between them. At least this time it will be his choice. “I just wished it changed anything.”

A long silence follows, and Dean almost wishes the fucking light would appear.

“I understand.” Cas’s voice is level, controlled. It’s identical to the way Cas speaks to his estranged family members when they call and ask him favors. Dean never imagined he’d be on the other side of Cas’s ire like this. “I’m rather tired. Would you mind if I slept in the backseat?”

Dean’s fingers clench. “If you want to sleep out here, you might as well do it in your car. I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

Cas slides back across the seat and gathers his things, and Dean refuses to look at him. He hears the door open, hears Cas get out and say quietly, “Goodnight, Dean.”

“Night.”

Cas closes the door.


	12. Night 15

**Night 15, 10:45 p.m.**

Dean forgot how claustrophobic this road can make him feel, especially at night. Add the light and Cas to worry about, and the unease caused by the surrounding trees and barricaded highway grows.

The woods along Highway 9 aren’t thick — maybe 100 yards at most on either side, edging the road and leading into plowed farmland, but at night you can’t tell. All he sees in the dark is trees, some large enough to bend up and over the road, creating an arboreal tunnel. The lights of the towns on either end of the highway remain invisible thanks to the valley the construction site dips into, and when the clouds cover the stars the only lights Dean sees are from cars passing through or waiting their turn to cross the open side of the bridges, or the two red lights, which continue to cycle, red and green, red and green, even when the traffic dies down at night.

Dean eyes every car with a wary suspicion — people don’t take this road late at night if they can help it, and part of him stubbornly wonders if the light and the equipment issues are man-made. But no car stops past the five minutes it takes for the light to change. And not one of the cars is a Lincoln Continental belonging to Cas Novak.

Three nights passed since their last run-in with the light, but Dean gets chills on the back of his neck every time he leaves the Impala to walk another round up and down the abandoned stretch of the road. Nothing is out of place, and he can hear crickets chirping and cicadas screaming from the trees, but he’s sure someone or something is watching him.

It was easier to stay here with Cas waiting for him back in the car, despite the nights spent in long bouts of uncomfortable silence or stilted conversation. With Cas next to him half of Dean’s thoughts were focused on his former crush, half on the haunted road. And now — well, Dean’s still thinking about both of those things, but when he’s alone his brain has more time to obsess. He’s split between worrying he’s going to die on a fucking favor job and wondering what the hell Cas meant when he said, “If I didn’t love you.”

Sometime after midnight, when he’s jumped for the umpteenth at headlights speeding past the Impala, Dean gives in and calls Cas’s cell.

It rings and rings and rings and goes to voicemail.

“This is Castiel Novak,” the stiff voice on the other end says. “You have reached my voicemail. If you’re calling during the day, I am likely in class or with a student. Please leave a mess—”

Dean hangs up. Two years since they met and Cas’s voicemail is the same as it was the first time Dean called him.

Sam needed an upper-level English credit to graduate early, and by the time his advisor told him this, Cas’s course — an upper-level credit with prerequisites Sam didn't have — was the only one left. Sam sent Cas a desperate email that went ignored, so Dean stepped into the overprotective parent role. He used police resources (inappropriately) to look up the professor’s personal number and called Cas after hours. He left a long, rambling voicemail about Sam’s intellectual prowess and work ethic and might have said a thing or two about tight funds and their inability to afford another semester at the university.

Sam was pissed when he found out, because by that point Cas had responded to say yes, of course Sam could join if he would promise to read a few other works to catch up.

But Cas called Dean back during the first week of the semester to brag on Sam. He asked how Dean found his cell phone number, which led to a sheepish confession and an offer from Cas — he’d forgive Dean’s invasion of his privacy in exchange for a cup of coffee, so he could meet “the most dedicated sibling I’ve ever heard of.”

Dean learned much later — after many more cups of coffee and movies and one terrible experience at a slam poetry night — that Cas’s relationships with his many siblings are tumultuous at best, hostile at worse. He admired Dean’s stupid voicemail because it showed the kind of familial love he’d never had. Once, on a blue moon occasion when Cas got spectacularly drunk, he’d confessed his wish to have someone who loved him, which struck Dean dumb. He thought his love for Cas was obvious, but apparently not.

And about ten months too late, Cas may love him back. Dean grits his teeth and calls again. Voicemail. Again. Voicemail.

Dean dials again, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Maybe Cas got in a wreck, maybe he took Dean’s rejection at face value and decided to never come back, maybe...

“What do you want, Winchester?”

Think of the fucking devil and he shall appear.

“You’re not Cas,” Dean says to be petulant. He feels it’s his right. After all, the last time he spoke to Cas’s older brother, Gabriel hung up on him.

“Damn right,” Gabe says. Dean hears an obnoxious crunching sound over the line. The idiot is probably eating hard candy again. How all his teeth haven’t fallen out is beyond Dean. “I’m the interesting one.”

“Where is he?” Dean snaps. “Why the hell do you have his phone?”

“We hang out sometimes. He’s here at my place. What’s it to you?”

Dean scoffs. “Yeah, if by hang out you mean you need something from him. Let me talk to him.”

“Nah,” Gabe says lightly. “No can do. See, Cassie’s throwing up all over the toilet in my apartment. He’s staying here for the night.”

“He’s sick?”

“Yeah, Dean-o, he’s spewing chunks.” Dean grimaces. “Look, it’s been too long, yadda yadda, but —”

“Hang on.” Cas coming back threw a wrench in Dean’s life he’d like to fix or break himself, and he’s not going to let Gabe put distance between them again. “I think you owe me an explanation for our last conversation.”

“I don’t remember it.” Gabe is quiet — dangerous. He’s the only one of Cas’s siblings Dean’s met in person, thanks to a few court dates where Gabe cross-examined him, acting as the defense attorney for some scumbag Dean put in jail. From their first meeting Dean formed an instant impression of the irreverent lawyer — he’s not what he appears to be. He acts carefree and ridiculous, the guy who never grew out of playing class clown, but he can turn on a dime and become threatening, imposing.

Dean’s not afraid of him, though, which drives Gabe up the wall.

“That’s funny, because I have a great memory — as you may recall from the last time we saw each other in court, when my attention to detail put your client in prison.” Dean keeps his voice even, icy. “And I recall you telling me my friendship with Cas was over, ‘effective immediately,’ that he did not want to speak to me or see me, and I should leave him alone or you’d be tempted to file a restraining order. But Cas didn’t know about any of that. When I asked him why he sicced his guard dog on me, he said he told you to tell me the truth. So. What’s the truth?”

Gabe chuckles, then clears his throat.

“Not for me to say.” _Typical attorney nonsense,_ Dean thinks with disgust. But it confirms what Cas said — Gabe was deliberately pushing Dean’s buttons the last time they talked, making Dean think Cas didn’t care. “If Cas wants to fall all over himself for you, it’s his business. I’m not interested in helping. You can call back later, when my brother can answer the phone.”

Gabe hangs up. Just like last time. And just like last time, Dean’s left staring at his black phone screen and wondering what the hell happened.


	13. Night 16

**Night 16, 2:32 a.m.**

Dean rolls his eyes as his phone beeps with another text message alert, but he smiles when he checks it.

            Cas: What’s going on now? Anything?

            Dean: Go to bed, Cas. Jeeze. I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself.

            Cas: I never said you couldn’t.

Dean flushes as he watches three dots appear on the screen as Cas types.

            Cas: I can’t help but worry, though. You shouldn’t be alone.

Dean smiles again, glad no one is here to see him blushing at his texts like a middle school girl. He can’t deny how relieved he felt when he woke at 6 for his next night shift and saw Cas had called him, apologizing for Gabe and for leaving Dean hanging. He did have a stomach bug, but he offered to come out to Highway 9 regardless.

Dean said no. Cas loses so much sleep as is, even on the nights when he curls up in the backseat of the Impala to catch a few hours. At least Dean gets to sleep during the day. Cas sticks to naps between classes. It’s probably why he got sick in the first place.

            Dean: Seriously dude. Go to sleep. I promise I’ll call if I see it again.

            Cas: Don’t go into the light, Dean.

Dean lets out a small laugh. Yeah, he wasn’t planning on it.

            Cas: I realize how silly that sounds, of course, but I’m being serious.

            Dean: No worries professor. I’m sticking to the car as much as possible.

It’s strange, how much lighter Dean feels now he knows Cas isn’t abandoning him again. He carried the weight of Cas’s abrupt departure everywhere he went for the nine months his friend was gone — Dean was withdrawn, irritable with his other friends, stung by rejection and unwilling to trust anyone but Bobby and Sam, because family isn’t allowed to leave you.

And he’s kept the weight on, kept the protective armor up when Cas came back looking for forgiveness. But Cas said what might as well be an “I love you” and Dean thought he lost him again, pushed him away, and it scared him — but he didn’t. Knowing Cas means business about making things right between them, willing to work to build trust up even when Dean is stubborn or rude or standoffish, well... It causes a feeling dangerously close to hope to nestle into Dean’s chest, right next to his heart.

            Cas: Stay safe.

 _Maybe,_ Dean can’t help but think as he reads those two words, _it will be different this time around._

And that’s when he sees the light again.

It looks different this time, more of a beam than a line, widening as it spreads across the bridge at the far end of the valley. It winks out of existence before it appears again, this time on the other side of the bridge.

“Fuck.” Dean scrambles for his gun, shoving his phone in his pocket. Yeah, he told Cas he’d call, but he’s not going to make the guy drive all the way out here or make him sit and worry uselessly from home. Dean switches the safety off on the gun and climbs out of the Impala, closing the door gently behind him.

He walks down the closed side of the highway, gun drawn, and the light disappears again. Dean steps off the roadway and into the gravel, moving through the equipment scattered along the side of the road and looking for it.

He hears laughter. Dean stops.

The other ambient night noises are there — wind blowing through the trees, cows bellowing to each other back in the pastures, water splashing... Splashing. There isn’t enough water in the creek beds to make noise unless someone jumps into them. With his gun still held ahead of him, Dean jogs to the far bridge.

More laughter, and the distinct sound of a spray paint can being shaken. “Shut up!” someone whisper-yells, and Dean sees the light. It’s peeking out from under the bridge, illuminating a tall, skinny boy with dark hair. “Aidan, get under here!” says a girlish voice Dean recognizes.

Fucking teenagers.

Not wanting to scare them into running, Dean darts back out across the highway, leaping the barrier, and holsters his gun, coming around the bridge from the other side. And yes, he did recognize the voice — Krissy Chambers and her constant partner-in-crime, Josephine Barnes. The girls are admiring their handiwork — some sort of occult-looking symbol they’ve spray painted on the underside of the bridge.

“Krissy,” Dean says, and he’s pleased when the teenagers jump. The boy, standing off to side, looks like he’s about to piss his pants. “What the hell are you doing out here at 3 in the morning?”

For a moment, Krissy looks as frightened as the others. Then she smiles, eerie in the dim glow of the flashlight. She and Dean have done this song and dance a thousand times before, after all.

“Detective Winchester,” she says. “Okay. Ya got us.”

“That’s it?” the boy hisses. “We don’t run?”

Krissy is still looking at Dean as she says, “Nah. Dean’s pretty fast. He’d catch _you_ at the very least. Besides, he knows this part of the road better than us.”

Dean rolls his eyes, turning his own flashlight on as he approaches the kids. Josephine sets her mouth into a thin line — she’s never enjoyed the cat and mouse part of the street vandalism gig the way Krissy does, preferring not to get caught — and the boy is split between terrified and stubborn. He must be new to Krissy’s little gang.

“All right, let’s go up top.” Dean scans the symbol they’ve painted, a circle with a star in it. He rolls his eyes again. “Pentagrams? Really, Krissy? So basic.”

“You’re too old to say ‘basic,’ Dean.” Krissy scrambles up the slight slope to the main road, followed by Josephine and the boy. “Aren’t you like forty?”

Dean scoffs. “I’m 28, dude. Now sit down while I call the sheriff’s office.” He gestures to a bench the workmen left out for their lunch breaks, on the side of the road next to the chipper. The kids sit, and the boy puts his head in his hands.

“My parents are gonna kill me,” he mutters.

“Shut up, Aidan,” Josephine snaps.

“Hey, we told you not to come,” Krissy says to Aidan casually, by far the most relaxed. Dean wonders how many times he’s arrested her for petty theft and minor property damage. Too many times. “Detective Winchester, aren’t you gonna be the one to book us?”

Dean listens as the off-hours phone in the sheriff’s office rings and rings. “I’m a freelancer now. So sorry, you’re going to have to find another law enforcement officer to annoy.”

A bored voice in Dean’s ear distracts him from whatever Krissy says in response. “Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, this is dispatch. How may I help you?”

Dean doesn’t recognize the voice of the dispatcher, so he doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “Yes ma’am, I’m working security for Singer and Turner Construction out on Highway 9, and I’ve got a group of vandals here in need of a ride to the sheriff’s office. We’re at the bridge near mile marker 22.”

He waits for the dispatcher to confirm there’s a deputy en route and hangs up, surveying the teens in front of him.

“Spare us the lecture,” Krissy says, holding up her palm in a ‘stop’ gesture. “I’ve heard it all before. ‘You’re better than this, Krissy. You should put your evil powers of persuasion to good use, Krissy.’”

“No, that’s not the lecture you’re getting this time.” Dean points at the paver. “Did you three have something to do with the brake failure on that piece of equipment? Or the engine fire on the bulldozer? Cause this is serious stuff. You could have seriously hurt someone, and the charges you three are looking at are worth way more than your typical $250 fine.”

He’s not surprised when all three of the teens look confused and shocked, glancing at each other with fear in their eyes. Dean knows they didn’t have anything to do with the accidents. He knows because it’s not them — it’s the fucking light. It’d be better for his sanity if the light was the product of a group of rebellious teenagers wracking havoc for no good reason, but of course that’s not the case. He’s still nowhere near close to solving the mystery of whatever the hell is going on here.

“We didn’t do any of those things,” Josephine insists. “This is the first night we’ve been out here, I swear!”

“It’s just a stupid prank,” Krissy says. “You know, to scare the next taggers who come out here at night.”

“Plus we wanted to be the first ones to graffiti the new road,” Aidan says, and the girls glare at him. He quickly adds, “But we didn’t want to hurt anyone! We never touched the equipment!”

Dean drags a hand down his face. “Okay. Say I believe you. You’re still going to have to convince Bobby and Rufus you didn’t sabotage their project. You shouldn’t be out here in the first place!” He looks around, not spotting another car. “How the hell did you get out here?”

Josephine shrugs, bumping up against the others from her spot in the middle of the bench. “My parents own the land next to the Bradbury’s. It backs up against the road. We took a four-wheeler to the edge of the wood.”

The kids fall silent, looking at their hands. Even Krissy, forever equipped with a snappy comeback, seems subdued by the accusation of a far more serious crime than tagging.

Dean walks over to the nearest bulldozer and leans against it, watching the kids and the road. He’s hoping he sees the lights of a deputy’s Charger before he sees _it_. He needs to get them out of here.

“You know,” Josephine says softly, “my grandma used to say this road is haunted.”

Dean looks up at her sharply as Krissy says, “Not this again, Josephine...”

“Shut up,” Josephine says in a low voice, almost a whisper. “It’s true. Nana wouldn’t make it up.”

Dean can’t help it. “What did she say?”

Aidan and Krissy give him odd looks, wondering why he’s butting into their conversation. But Josephine stares out over the road.

“She said when she was a kid, there was a circle in the woods. These woods.” Josephine waves a hand to encompass the trees surrounding the highway. “It was made of dead grass, and it was perfectly round. Everyone knew not to go in it.”

“I hate this story,” Aidan mutters, putting his head down between his knees. Krissy plays with her cuticles, spooked and acting like she isn’t.

“She never said _how_ they knew the circle was bad,” Josephine continues. “They just knew. All the farmers in the area avoided it and the woods. But Nana would walk right up to the ring with her friends sometimes, daring them to get as close as possible to it. They called it the devil’s circle, because one night when one of them got too close, it started to glow.”

Dean pushes off the side of the bulldozer, pacing in front of the kids. Josephine keeps talking.

“They never came back to it afterwards. But then the highway came. Nana said they destroyed the circle. They built a road right over it. And almost immediately, people started to die.”

“This is such bullshit,” Krissy says, but her voice shakes. Dean remembers her dad’s wreck. It happened when she was in middle school. Dean was one of the officers who had to explain to her, just a little girl, that she was an orphan, that her father died when his car flipped over on Highway 9. “People die here ‘cause the road is shitty and they drive too fast.”

“Yeah, or there’s a curse!” Josephine sits up straighter. “My nana knew old Martin Creaser. She says he always walked the same path to get to his far pasture, right around the edge of the circle. He knew they were there! He told the workmen not to build over them, but they didn’t listen. And they took him as payment for destroying their land.”

“Who’s they?” Dean asks. Josephine shrugs.

“Nana called them the night people. She said she saw them in the woods and on the road after it was built. They would stand there, surrounded by this bright light.” Dean’s breath catches in his throat. “She spotted them right in front of her once, standing in the middle of the highway. She braked hard, and when she came to a stop and looked back up, the light was gone.”

Lights spill out over the road at the top of the hill, and all four of them jump. It’s the Charger driving down the hill. Just a deputy, then. The car pulls off the side of the road at the red light, waiting.

“Go on,” Dean says, shooing the teenagers out in front of him. He spares a backward glance at the woods as he ushers them to the car, and he swears he sees it — the light, suspended over the ground at the edge of the wood behind them.

This time he swears there’s a silhouette inside it.


	14. Night 17

**Night 17, 9:13 p.m.**

“Cas, drink your soup and go lay down.”

Too ill to teach his classes, Cas pulled up at 7:30, just as Dean pulled into his usual spot. He’s spent the past two hours dozing off and jerking awake, worried Dean let him sleep through another sighting.

The bags under Cas’s eyes are heavier than usual when he turns to Dean and raises his eyebrows.

“I’m not tired,” he protests, his voice rough with sleep. It’s kind of adorable to hear a grown man with a grown man voice complain like a small child. “I don’t want to miss it.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“You’re exhausted. I promise I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

“That’s what you said last night,” Cas grumbles, ever petulant, before taking a large sip of the chicken broth Dean brought him.

“Yeah, well.” Dean doesn’t have a good answer, and he knows it. “Did you bring your headphones?”

Cas’s eyes widen comically over the thermos. He lowers it from his lips, guilty.

“Cas...”

“Well, you see,” Cas begins, and Dean drops his head against the steering wheel in frustration, “I work in a cubicle now, and it’s very hard to grade papers with all my colleagues constantly chatting around me. I would like to tell Meg no, I don’t care about her terrible haircut, but I have to be civil. I found if I wore the headphones no one would bother me, and I couldn’t hear them.”

“Cas!” Dean hits the steering wheel with one hand. “Those are to protect you from the monster light song, not to help you avoid your coworkers!”

Cas shrugs.

“I’ll bring them next time.”

Dean gestures for Cas to hand him the empty thermos. He does, and Dean screws on the lid and sticks it in the lunch box he packed for the night. There’s another can of soup for Cas in there, as well as a burger for him and two muffins from Sam, who somehow figured out Cas sits out here with Dean every night. Sam hasn’t bugged Dean about it — yet — but he did say, “Tell Cas I said hi,” when they ran into each other as Dean was leaving their apartment and Sam was walking in.

Dean looks at the food, meals for two, and his chest tightens. He should bring up what Cas said the last time they were out here together; he should apologize for never giving Cas a chance to explain his absence.

Instead he asks, “What happened with the university? I mean, why are you working for Winston Central Community now? They can’t actually need an ancient Greek lit professor.”

Cas fiddles with the edges of his familiar trench coat, eyes cast down. Dean waits in silence for him to find the words he’s searching for.

“I had to leave my position for personal reasons,” he says, rubbing at one of the buttons on his coat. “The university expected me to come back within the semester, but that was not... feasible. They had to let me go. When I moved back to Jacksonville, they’d filled my position. The community college needed a English professor, so... I accepted the job. Now instead of Homer, I teach Huxley.” Cas shudders. “I always hated ‘Brave New World.’”

Dean looks at Cas, small in his oversized coat, sad in the remnants of his former life, and he feels for him. “Yeah. Yeah, I hated it, too.”

This would be the perfect time to dig in, to ask Cas what the “personal reasons” where. To ask him what they had to do with Dean.

“Cas—“

Before he finishes his thought, the car is flooded with sound. The same loud, booming sound Dean remembers from before, but closer now. He looks up, and the light is right there.

It stands — because it does seem to have feet, and arms and a head and a body — and the light around it pulses, growing stronger. The figure inside the light moves forward, stopping right in front of the Impala, and the car shakes as the light pulses, emitting another boom.

“Cas!” Dean shouts, because Cas is staring, transfixed. Dean doesn’t have time to wonder what he hears, or what he sees — to ask if he can see the night person through the glow — because Cas’s hand is on the door handle. Dean yanks him down and into the floorboard.

“CAS!” Dean screams into his ear as Cas scrambles to get away from him. Dean locks his arms and legs around him in a tight hold, wincing when Cas thrashes. Cas’s head slams back into Dean’s nose, causing Dean to cry “Fuck!” as it starts to bleed, but he tightens his hold.

The light surrounds the Impala, and the terrible roar is killing Dean’s ears and shaking the car from side to side. Dean prays it won’t bust out a window on his baby.

Cas struggles in his arms, unaware he’s hurt Dean, unaware of anything except the song he hears. He pushes out his legs as far he can with Dean wrapped around him, setting them against the floorboard and pushing back. Cas slams Dean into the underside of the bench seat, and Dean feels the metal supports digging into his shoulders and back.

“You have to stop!” he shouts, and Cas pushes back against him again. The light pulses and Dean closes his eyes. “Cas! Listen to me! Don’t listen to it! Don’t do this! Cas, please!” Cas slams into him again, and Dean can feel the blood dripping down his face. “I need you!”

The light vanishes. All sound ceases — the car isn’t running, the radio is off, Dean can’t even hear his own heavy breathing — then, with, no prompting, the engine roars back to life, Bob Seger plays on the radio, and Dean hears someone groaning.

Oh yeah. It’s him. His fucking nose is broken.

“Dean!” Cas twists in his arms, and Dean lets him go, dropping his head back against the floorboard. Cas’s worried face comes into view above him. “Oh my god, Dean! I’m so sorry.”

Cas reaches out a hand and gently touches Dean’s cheek, tilting his head to get a better look at his nose. If Dean crosses his eyes he can see it, already turning a faint, bluish, blackish mottled mix.

“I should take you to the hospital,” Cas says, horrified. “I am so, so sorry. I —”

Dean waves him off, pushing up from the floorboard so he’s even with Cas.

“I’m fine,” he says, although his nose is throbbing. He glances down at the little drops of blood on his shirt. “I can go in the —” He looks back up, and Cas is right there, eyes huge and worried and very blue. Dean sucks in a breath, and Cas stares at him. Dean kisses him.

He kisses Cas for all the times he wanted to during the year of their friendship, for the night at the gala when Bela interrupted them, for the nine months of loneliness that followed. He kisses Cas because he almost lost him, because Cas said he loves Dean, because Dean needs it.

He kisses Cas without thinking too much about it, focused for a few perfect seconds on the natural way their lips fit together, the beautiful feeling of Cas’s fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck, the way Cas’s hip feels underneath Dean’s hand. Cas shifts to get closer, bumping Dean’s injured nose, and the magic moment shatters.

“Ahhh.” Dean groans, leaning back and touching his nose gingerly. “God, that smarts.”

When he pulls away from Cas, Dean sees blood smeared around his lips. He grimaces, reaching forward to wipe it away with his thumb. Cas tilts his head, confused.

Dean holds up his thumb, now red. “Uh, blood from my nose? Gross. Sorry.”

Cas smiles, a small thing. “I didn’t notice.” His face falls then, and he says, “Dean, what are we going to do? About us, about... the light or the will-o’-the-wisp or... about everything?”

His nose smarts, his head aches and he feels the imprint of Cas on his lips. Dean’s not in a position to think beyond this second.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. This rift between he and Cas spans too far for a single kiss to bridge. And the light and the night people, whatever they are, are on another level altogether.

“Okay,” Cas says, and Dean hears the disappointment in his voice. “Well, we should get you to the ER.” Dean protests, and Cas cuts him off with a firm, “No, Dean. I insist. I don’t think I should be out here tonight anyway, in case —” Cas swallows hard. “In case it comes back.”

Dean sees Cas’s fear, naked before him for the first time, and the feeling of almost losing Cas to the light crushes him.

“Yeah, fine,” Dean says, running a hand underneath his nose. Still bleeding. “Let’s get out of here.”

///

 

**6:00 a.m.**

“Lonely is the Night” wakes him. Fitting. After all, Dean forced Cas to go home after their three-hour stay in the ER, when he’s certain Cas would have come back to Dean’s apartment had he asked. But Dean’s face hurts and his head and heart are confused between wanting to kiss Cas again and still kind of wanting to punch him, so no one got lucky last night.

Well, Sam did. Dean heard Jess leave at 5:30 for her shift at the hospital. At least one of the Winchester brothers ended their dry spell.

The caller isn’t Cas, but Bobby. Dean groans, smashing his face into the pillow, then groans again because he hurt his bandaged nose.

“Yeah,” he answers, more gruffly than he intended.

“Sorry to wake you, Sleeping Beauty,” Bobby says, but he offsets his own gruffness by asking, “How’s the nose?”

Dean texted Bobby last night to tell him he broke his nose tripping over a piece of rebar. He said he could go back out to the highway once he got it set, but Bobby said, “No. I’ll call in the morning.”

“It’s... swollen.” Dean rubs his eyes. “Rebar, man. It’ll get ya.”

“Uh huh.” The disbelief comes through loud and clear. “Rebar. Was Cas with you when it happened, or does he just enjoy abandoning his car on the side of the highway?”

Dean bolts up. “Damn it, he took my car!” He felt a little loopy on the pain meds last night, so he didn’t register Cas dropping him off and driving home in the Impala.

“I don’t need details,” Bobby says. “If you were anyone else I would fire you for on-job distraction, but as is...” Bobby’s voice trails off. “Well, as is, I would keep you forever, cause we’ve had no issues since you started. But Dean, now you’ve caught the Chambers kid —“

“No, no, Bobby.” Dean sits, pulling on his shoes. He has to go get Baby. “Krissy had nothing to do with the equipment failures. I think we’re dealing with something else.”

“Right,” Bobby says uneasily. “The problem is, I have a partner, Dean. Rufus is willing to let the kids off the hook ‘cause they’re kids, but he’s not willing to keep paying you to guard our crap against a whole lotta nothing. And even I know it doesn’t make any financial sense.”

“Bobby, I’m serious.” Dean digs for Sam’s keys, which have to be somewhere in the backpack he dumped on the kitchen counter. “The kids didn’t have anything to do with that stuff.”

“Dean, I’m sorry.” To Bobby’s credit, he does sound genuine. “If I hear of anyone else who needs a PI, I’ll let you know. I’ve gotta go now; I’m supervising today. We can talk more later.”

Bobby hangs up, and Dean half-heartedly slaps at the wall. “Damn it!” He looks down at his phone. One text from Cas, which he opens.

            Cas: I got Gabriel to take me to get my car. Your “baby” is in your driveway. Get some sleep. Dinner tonight?

Dean sighs. At least one thing in his life is going right, if a single kiss followed by a trip to the emergency room can be considered “right.” He taps his phone against his lips, considering. Bobby’s wrong about the kids, but he won’t believe the tale Dean has to tell. Cas is the only one who will believe it. And they need to come up with a plan to fix whatever is happening on Highway 9, and fast. Before someone else gets hurt.

            Dean: Yeah. Hey, I’ll bring over steaks if that’s OK. 8?

 He’s got research to do.


	15. Night 18

**Night 18, 8:42 p.m.**

Dinner is over, and Dean is full on steak (prepared by him) and wine (provided by Cas). They’ve discussed the politics of small town community colleges (Cas) and the instability of self-employment (Dean); they’ve made obscure pop culture references (Dean) and even more obscure references to ancient deities (Cas). They have not talked about the light, or about the kiss Dean initiated but Cas eagerly responded to (and that’s on both of them).

But now the plates are cleared and the leftovers bagged and Dean is tipsy and sitting sideways on Cas’s couch, they have to talk about one of those topics. Dean, like the coward he is, picks the easier one. And it’s all kinds of fucked up the easier topic is “floating death light people.”

“So,” Cas says, sitting in the middle of the coach, his leg touching Dean’s bent knee, “you brought more research. You know how I feel about well-thought-out sources.” He tries to waggle his eyebrows and fails. Dean snort-laughs.

“Down, professor. This is, uh—” Dean’s wine-blurred mind searches for the right way to explain the realization which came to him so clearly this afternoon as he pulled up PDFs of old books and read myths in lieu of sleeping. His sleep schedule is so off, which is not helping any more than the wine is. “This is gonna sound nuts.”

Cas takes a big gulp of his Merlot. “Dean, all of this _is_ nuts.”

“Right.” Dean decides to begin with a bang, taking a dog-eared copy of _The Return of the King_ out of his bag. “Theories.” He taps the book’s cover. “Will-o’-the-wisps are the ghostly lights carried by the dead in a lot of literature, including Tolkien.” Cas stares at him blankly, and Dean rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe you learned to read Greek and yet can’t be bothered to open the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy. Okay, so Sam, the Rudy hobbit, spots a floating light in a marsh and Gollum, this creepy goblinish thing, tells him not to follow it or he’ll join it in death.”

Cas pales. Dean continues, “But, as I’m sure you know from your own research, the will-o’-the-wisp is sometimes associated with...fairies.”

“Fairies?” Cas repeats, and he doesn’t seem skeptical, just curious to see where Dean's going with this.

“Yeah, in England they used to call them ‘fairy fire.’ Travelers would say they saw people holding the lights, trying to lead them off the path into the woods. But the real evidence for this theory we should consider is the more well-known myth of the fairy ring.”

“Alright, I know about those. But what do they have to do with the light?”

“I wouldn’t have made the connection until I caught those kids on Highway 9 the other day,” Dean says. “One of them, Josephine Barnes, comes from a long line of Barnes with family land backing up onto the highway. Cas, she talked about how her grandmother called the highway ‘haunted.’ How the construction of the road ran right over a circle where nothing grew, a circle everyone who owned land nearby knew to avoid.”

Cas downs his glass. Dean follows suit.

“Fairies,” Cas says, his hand shaking as he sets his glass down. “Most lore about fairies is not....” He waves his hand in the air.

“Disney,” Dean finishes for him. “It’s nasty. Especially if you break a fairy circle. They’ll sabotage you, or worse, steal people from your world and take them to theirs. They hold grudges. And we have a circle which wasn’t just broken but destroyed.”

“They’re angry. They keep appearing on the road, causing accidents, because we’ve made them angry.”

“I think it’s the best theory.” Dean rolls his empty glass between his palms. “And it fucking sucks. Because the way you right the wrong is to put the circle back in place, and there’s no way we can do that. It’s gone.”

“The construction probably isn’t helping,” Cas adds. “Rubbing it in, as it were.”

A few more answers fall into place in Dean’s mind, and he snaps his fingers.

“Damn! The disappearances. They happened right after the highway was built, the year the bridges were first re-done, and now....”

“Now they’re widening the road, and they’ve decided they want me,” Cas says. He looks down at his hands, and Dean can’t help himself. He reaches over to touch Cas’s knee, the smallest gesture of comfort he can provide.

“Hey,” he says, and Cas glances up at him. “Nothing is going to happen to you. Not with me around.”

Cas opens his mouth and closes it, disregarding whatever it was he wanted to say. He hesitantly lays a hand over Dean’s, squeezing it. Dean doesn’t move away.

“We have to stop it,” Cas says. “We can’t let them keep hurting people on the highway.”

Dean rubs his thumb over Cas’s knee, takes a moment to appreciate the heat of Cas’s hand over his.

“We’ll figure it out,” he says. He laughs. “An ex-detective and ex-tenured professor who happen to be ex-best friends. Sounds like a friggin’ movie, huh? Nobody better for the job.”

Cas draws his hand back. “Right.”

Belatedly Dean realizes what he said, and as he attempts to clarify, “Hey, what I meant was —” Cas’s cell phone rings. It’s one of those pre-programmed ringtones, extra annoying because there’s nothing personal behind it, no thought or feeling. Dean’s relieved when Cas reaches for his phone to silence it.

“Oh,” Cas says, looking at the screen. Dean can’t see who’s calling from where he’s sitting. “I have to take this. Give me a minute.”

Dean nods, but Cas is already walking down the hall toward his bedroom, and he hears the door open and close, Cas’s voice too muffled to make out. Dean leans back against the edge of the couch and contemplates whether he wants to get up and fetch more wine. Talking about fairies as a real entity while almost sober is difficult enough, talking about his and Cas’s relationship will be impossible.

Him and Cas. Fuck, he used to daydream about them as a couple all the time when work got slow, sitting at his desk in the sheriff’s office and zoning out. He’d imagine Cas laughing at one of his jokes during Sunday brunch and reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. When they watched movies together at Dean’s apartment, he fantasized about putting an arm casually over Cas’s shoulder. He thought of kissing Cas a million times before the gala and thought of having sex with Cas every time he touched himself.

Dean rubs at his crotch, willing his burgeoning erection to go down. He can’t rush headfirst into this new territory, the territory where all those daydreams could come true.

Cas reenters the room, phone in hand. His face is flushed and his hair is disorderly, like he ran his hand through it multiple times. Dean tries not to stare too hard.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes.” Cas rubs at his forearm, agitated. “Well, it will be. Dean, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to put off our next trip out to Highway 9 for a few days. I — There’s somewhere I have to be.”

Dean’s stomach sinks.

“Somewhere you have to be?”

“Yes, but I promise I’ll be back.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean says, swallowing uneasily. “You’ll be back.”

This is all too familiar. The sudden intimacy, followed by avoidance of the topic and an abrupt, unexplained departure. He’s seen this show before. Now he bought tickets to the same one again. God, he feels stupid.

Dean stands up, avoiding Cas’s eyes as he gathers his things.

“Dean, I swear.” Cas tries to step into his personal space, and Dean moves around him, sweeping his bag onto his shoulder and grabbing his keys from Cas’s coffee table. “This is not like last time.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Dean doesn’t look back when he opens the door, shrugging away when Cas lays a hand lightly on his arm. “Do whatever you have to do. I can take care of this.”

He’s had too much to be driving but not enough to make him truly impaired, and it’s the heartache propelling him down the sidewalk to the curb where the Impala waits. Cas yells after him, asking him to come back and sleep it off, but Dean can’t imagine spending the night there knowing Cas is leaving in the morning. His apartment is only four blocks away. He can make it.

When Dean pulls out onto the road, he finally looks back. Cas stands stiff as a statue in his front yard, staring after him.


	16. Night 20

**Night 20, 10:45 p.m.**

Dean doesn’t know what he’s doing out here.

He came back to Highway 9 with a vague plan to gather clues now he knows (maybe) what he’s dealing with. But back on the road, alone, in the dark, it seems like a shitty plan.

The moon and stars are hidden behind clouds tonight, and the road is empty save for the occasional trucker rolling up to one of the stoplights and waiting their turn to move on. The woods seem darker than usual, more menacing — the branches of the trees twisting down toward Dean as if to ensnare him, the unblinking animal eyes following him. If he felt afraid before, it is nothing compared to walking into the woods, armed with a handgun and a flashlight, knowing what might await him.

But Dean’s spent the past two days doing nothing but drinking and reading fairy lore and ignoring Cas’s texts and calls (let him see what it feels like to get left behind for once), and he’s itching out of his skin. Something has to be done. Dean needs to do it. Whatever _it_ is.

The problem with fairy lore, Dean thinks as a deer bursts through the woods, startling him, is it’s incredibly diverse. So many cultures believe in a people from another land, and the legends all have different theories on what fairies are — some say they shape shift into animals, some claim they’re tiny people, some say they’re disguised as humans and live among us. Which legend rings most true is up for debate.

As for how to repel them... Dean’s wearing his jacket inside out, because he read somewhere that helps, and carrying a tiny gold bell he found at antique store. Bells and gold, they’re both supposed to... do something, he can’t remember. Dean’s still not sleeping well, even off the night shift, and his head pounds in time with his heart as he walks through the trees.

The woods aren’t thick — walk a hundred yards and you’re out. On this side of the highway he’ll exit out into either the Barnes’ land or the Bradburys’; he’s not sure which family owns what acreage. He’s been to the Bradburys’ before. He used to be friends with their daughter, Charlie, when they were kids, before Charlie’s parents died in a car wreck and she was sent to live with her aunt in Florida. She sent him a sweet letter when his dad died, and Dean’s heard she lives on her parents’ land for part of the year. He really ought to try and get back in touch with her.

Dean hears cows mooing as he reaches the edge of the wood, and he has yet to spot anything unusual or unnatural. He turns to walk the length of the trees, staying close to the border of the open land so he feels less trapped. He can’t shake the feeling he’s being watched, and the hairs along his arms and the back of his neck stand up. He pauses, sweeping his flashlight around the trees.

And there, on the ground in front of him, is a circle.

Small flowers Dean doesn’t recognize, a non-native species, grow in between mushrooms in a perfect ring, spanning about three feet in diameter. The grass in the middle is a different shade than the grass outside, lighter — glowing, almost. Dean’s first thought is, stupidly, _it really is greener on the other side._ Then he sees the circle is broken.

There’s a hole in the ring on the side farthest from him where someone yanked the flowers and mushrooms out, roots and all.

“Shit,” Dean mutters under his breath. Now they have not one broken ring, but two. Unless this was the original, but it doesn’t look anything like what Josephine described in her grandmother’s story — a dead ring, void of grass. This one looks healthy, beautiful. But still cracked.

Dean bends down to examine the circle, the little bell in his pocket ringing as he jostles it. He puts a hand in his pocket to silence it, but the bell abruptly stops ringing on its own. Dean raises his head from the circle to look around, and his flashlight shorts out.

 _Fuck_. In the dark, the woods fall dead silent. No more crickets, no more cows, no more rustling branches. Dean isn’t alone out here.

He doesn’t stop to think. He just runs.

The sounds of the woods come back in full force and a light shines from behind him. He runs for the pasture, scrambling out of the trees and climbing hastily over the fence, snagging his jacket and ripping a chunk out as he heads for the nearest building, an abandoned wooden barn tilting heavily to one side in the middle of the pasture. The light calls behind him, booming and insistent, and Dean does not look back.

He stumbles over a gopher hole in the thick, tall grass and lands flat on his face. Dean shoves his fist in his mouth and bites down to keep from screaming at the sharp pain shooting through his nose. He rolls onto his side and stays still, breathing harshly around his hand as he wonders if he should get back up and run for the barn or stay hidden in the unmowed grass.

The booming stops, and Dean hears the cows calling to each other, frightened, closer to the wood. His nose throbs, and his jeans and jacket are drenched with mud. The cloud cover breaks, and the moon peers down at him, dirty and terrified and alone in a field.

There’s a puddle of water near his face, left to pool in the cattle's hoof prints following the last rain, and the moon is reflected in it. Dean closes his eyes, willing his heart rate to slow, needing to think. When he opens them, there’s a shadow in the puddle, partially obscuring the reflection of the moon. It’s the shadow of a man.

Dean holds his breath, waiting — waiting to see if he’s been spotted, waiting to die. After what feels like an age but is most likely a moment or two, the shadow moves, and Dean hears footsteps tramping through the grass toward the barn. He stays still, listening as the footsteps fade away. It might be a trap, but he can’t stay here.

He pulls himself to his feet, his ankle protesting — bruised — and Dean runs again. He runs back across the pasture, nearly tripping over the body of a dead cow, its tongue lolling from its mouth and eyes empty. Dean swallows back bile and rushes into the woods, not bothering to stop for his abandoned flashlight. The moon comes out in full, and it shines just enough to illuminate the trunks of the trees, though Dean’s legs still get caught by the brush as he bolts back toward the highway.

He doesn’t stop to check his surroundings once he reaches the road. He runs past the chip spreader and the roller and the bulldozer, past the state-mandated safety regulations posted on the bulletin board, past the discarded orange cones and the blinking stoplight. He runs straight for Baby.

He hid the keys underneath the front seat, and Dean grabs them with shaking hands and shoves them none-too-gently into the ignition. “Sorry, Baby,” he murmurs, running a hand over her wheel as he starts the engine. It roars to life.  
  
“Thank you,” Dean says to the Impala, and he pulls out onto the highway. The fucking light is red.

Normally Dean would think _to hell with it_ and gun it down the open side of the road, but he sees headlights approaching from the other end. Three cars, one after the other, making their way northbound and cutting off his escape route. He has to wait for them to pass. There’s no way he’s going to plow headfirst into a civilian because he’s spooked, and he doesn’t have room or time to 16-point turn the Impala around.

Dean tries to take deep, calming breaths, watching the headlights crawl closer. The car in the front of the line is driving at least ten under the speed limit as it crosses the first bridge on the far end of the valley.

“Come on,” Dean says, tapping the wheel with his fingers, frantic. “Come on, come on.”

“In a hurry?” an unfamiliar voice asks, and Dean jumps so high he smacks his head against the Impala’s roof.

There, in the passenger’s side, sits a man. He looks like a normal, elderly gentleman — almost bald, delicate glasses, bushy grey eyebrows he raises at Dean. And he appeared out of nowhere.

Dean reaches behind his back for the door handle. It won’t budge.

“Dean Winchester,” the man says, shaking his head. “Hold on, hold on. I have a message for you to deliver, then I’ll let you go.”

“Let me go?” Dean snarls, his fear butting up against his natural give-‘em-hell attitude and losing out. “Buddy, you let me go _now_ or I shoot you in the face.”

The man only laughs as Dean reaches for his holster. He holds up a hand, and in it is Dean’s gun.

“Message first, shoot later.” The gun disappears as the man clasps his hands together. Dean stares at him, wide-eyed. “I think you may have some idea of what I am, Dean, though you undoubtedly have missed the whole picture. The most important thing for you to know — the only thing you truly need to know — is I am looking for the guilty party.” Dean’s brow furrows, and the man leans back against the Impala door with a satisfied smirk. “And I won’t stop roaming this highway until they come with me to be judged.”

Dean blinks in shock and the man disappears, leaving nothing behind but Dean’s gun sitting in an empty seat.


	17. Night 21

**Night 21, 8:06 p.m.**

Cas is already at their spot when Dean pulls in, leaning against his Continental with his arms crossed. He’s irritated, and it pisses Dean off. He bailed on Cas for three days. Cas bailed on him for nine months. It’s about damn time this unspoken argument between them comes to a head.

Dean slams the Impala’s door as he gets out, not bothering to apologize to her the way he normally would. He keeps his eyes on Cas, not backing down as he crosses to stand in front of him.

“I thought you were hurt,” Cas says, voice clipped. “I had to call Sam to make sure you were alright. He said you were out last night. He assumes you still have this job.”

“Yeah, well. I went to a bar,” Dean lies. “I needed to blow off some steam.”

Cas’s face falls in an instant, dropping from agitated to devastated. Yes, Dean’s an absolute asshole, but right now he wants to make Cas feel a fraction of what he feels every damn day, because Dean is the one who is always, _always_ left behind.

“I suppose nothing has changed,” Cas says, swallowing hard and looking away from Dean. “The kiss didn’t mean anything.”

“How can it mean anything?” Dean fists clench at his side. “You’re still keeping shit from me. I can trust you with the light, yeah, but I can’t trust you with anything else. You always run off without an explanation. It’s what you do!”

“Dean, I have an explanation!” Dean is startled by Cas’s ferocity. Cas spins to look back at him. “Do you want to hear it or not? It might not make you forgive me, but at least you’ll stop...” Cas trails off, anger leaving him like air rushing out of a deflated balloon. “At least you’ll stop feeling like I left because of you.”

Dean feels it again, the tightness building behind his eyes, a warning sign flashing “stop this conversation before you cry!” But he can’t take this anymore, the not knowing.

“You never called, Cas.” His voice cracks. _Damn it_. So there’s no way to play this other than embarrassingly vulnerable. “You never texted or emailed. I was worried, too. I was scared and lonely. I needed my best friend, and you weren’t there. Maybe you didn’t leave because of something I did, but you stayed away from me anyway. So just tell me the truth, man — when did you stop caring about me?”

Cas takes a step toward Dean and says with conviction, “Never.”

Dean blinks at him, and a tear tracks its way down his cheek. Cas moves closer, and one hand reaches up to touch Dean’s jaw, careful and light.

“Never,” Cas says again. “I fell in love with you, with your humor and your loyalty and your courage. You were the only person in my life who never tried to change a thing about me, who wanted to understand me in all my faults and eccentricities. I loved you. I love you. I would follow you into the damn light if I had to.”

Dean leans forward, his forehead falling against Cas’s shoulder, and Cas’s arms wrap around him.

“I am so, so sorry for the pain I caused you, and I’ll never forgive myself for it. But please, let me tell you everything,” Cas whispers in his ear. “Please, Dean.”

Dean gives in, bumping his head against Cas’s shoulder as he nods. Cas sweeps a hand over his back, the other coming to rest on the nape of Dean’s neck. They stay like that for a long time, Cas hugging Dean on the side of an empty highway as the moon hangs overhead and the crickets chirp from the trees.

They’re standing on a precipice — wherever they go from here, nothing will be the same. So Dean clings to Cas to keep them grounded for a little while longer, in the in between place where they love one another blindly.

Then —

“Castiel Novak.”

Dean’s face is buried in Cas’s shoulder, but he tenses as soon as he hears the voice. He knows that voice. He feels the light at his back before he manages to wriggle out of Cas’s arms, turning around and putting Cas behind him with his back to the Impala.

It’s the man from last night, stepping out of the unnatural glow. It throbs and hums behind him, but the sound is muted. Once the man’s feet are on the ground, the light flashes and disappears, leaving him standing in front of them, wiping his hands together.

Cas grabs at Dean’s back. “Dean —”

“Castiel,” the man says again, and Dean hates the way Cas’s full name sounds coming from this monster’s lips. “You’re not responding to my song as well as I’d hoped, so I decided to do a more... _personal_ outreach.”

Dean plants himself in front of Cas, for all the good it will do. He has no weapon on him, and he’s not sure a regular bullet would stop a goddamn fairy who _teleports and appears out of a fucking ball of light._

“What do you want from him?” Dean asks anyway, with an affected confidence.

The man smiles. It strikes Dean how truly non-descript he looks, like any other old man, and he wonders if he’s ever seen him before.

“I told you,” he says. “I want the guilty party to come with me to be judged.”

He raises his hand and points at Cas, who’s slowly edging out from behind Dean.

“Cas,” Dean says, “get the fuck in the Impala.”

Cas hesitates, as if he can hear the man’s siren call even without the light drawing him in, but then he obeys, pulling open the door and falling inside, yanking Dean back with him.

Dean almost lands on top of Cas, but he manages to slam the door closed as the man approaches the Impala.

“Come on now,” the man says, and Dean hears the hum return, thrumming under the man’s voice. He’s irritated.

In less time than it takes to blink, the man is sitting in the back seat of the Impala, eyebrows raised.

“You know, it’s so much easier when you walk into the light like you’re supposed to,” he says. “It keeps me from having to walk through the filthy muck of your world to gather a sacrifice.”

Dean throws out an arm to stop Cas from getting any closer to the back seat, but Cas asks, “Sacrifice?”

“Sure,” the man replies easily. “’And the blood of the guilty shall spill at the gates, and the gates shall open for the worthy to pass.’ What?” He looks at their shocked faces. “We have our own scriptures and prophesies, gentlemen. You would call them magic spells, I believe.”

Dean pushes Cas back further, so he’s pressed up against the dashboard. The man shakes his head.

“Dean, I’m going to get what I want. And I want your friend to come with me. He knows his crimes.” The man looks at Cas. “Lust, lies, covetousness, adultery.”

 _Adultery_. Dean glances over at Cas, whose mouth falls open slightly.

But he can’t focus on that now. For all the man’s talk, he hasn’t bothered to grab Cas. And the other night, the night they kissed, when he rocked the Impala like a boat in a storm — he didn’t get Cas then, either. Either Cas has to be willing to go with him, or something else is holding the man back.

Dean shifts toward Cas, and his foot hits the lunch bag Sam packed him, same as every night, ‘cause Dean still hasn’t told Sam Bobby let him go. And Dean gets an idea.

“Whatever the fuck you’re talking about, Cas ain’t going with you,” Dean says evenly, hooking his foot in the handle of the bag and inching it toward him. He prays at least one of those stupid ‘How to Repel Fairies’ primers was right. “So you can get the hell out of my car.”

“So brave, Dean,” the man says. “So idiotic, as well. As if you have any say in this. You do not. Your people must pay for their crimes. They’re lucky I only take the guilty.” He turns to Cas. “The ones like you.”

Dean has the bag up high enough now to reach it with one hand. The zipper is halfway open already, and he fumbles inside with his fingers, feeling around the plastic containers, looking for the little packets he never uses. His fingers brush up against two.

They’re sugar, not salt. He hopes this still works.

“I’m not guilty of all the things you accuse me of,” Cas says. The words shake as they leave his mouth. “And I am not going with you.”

The man leans forward as Dean manages to open the sugar packets. As fast as he can, Dean reaches back to open the driver’s side door, spilling the sugar out onto the gravel below.

The man’s eye twitches and he lunges at Dean, banging up against an invisible barrier. He grunts, and his whole body shudders, a scowl overtaking his face. Then he’s outside of the car, kneeling beside the open door.

“One, two, three, four...” The man counts, angry and harried. Dean starts the engine and guns it, getting a green light right when he needs it for once. He closes the door as they speed southbound toward home.

“What the hell!?” Cas asks, looking over his shoulder out the back window.

“Fairies have to stop to count spilled salt. And spilled sugar, too, I guess. Fuck. Fuck!” Dean laughs, giddy with relief. “Sucker!”

There’s a long silence as their heart rates slow and the adrenaline tapers off. Robert Plant croons softly on the radio, singing “Fool in the Rain.” Exactly like the first night Cas came back.

Cas breaks the silence.

“Come home with me,” he says, and Dean wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.

///

 

**9:14 p.m.**

They stagger through the door at Cas’s house, bone-deep exhausted as the high of their escape wears off. Cas shucks off his trench coat, hanging it on the coat hooks next to the door, and silently holds his hand out for Dean’s jacket. Dean gives it to him. He’s staying the night. He might as well get comfortable.

“Do you think he can follow us?” Cas asks as they walk through the living room. Cas splits off into the open kitchen to make tea, and Dean collapses on the end of the couch.

“Nah.” Dean watches Cas over the open bar as he rummages through his cabinets for his stupid teal blue teakettle. Cas has a Keurig, and yet he insists on making his tea the old fashioned way. “He would have snatched you up by now if he could. I think he’s drawn to that area— the highway and the woods.”

Cas leaves the kitchen to grab blankets from the hall closet, passing one over to Dean and sitting next to him on the couch. This scene — tea brewing, both of them wrapped up in Cas’s grandma’s old quilts, sitting too close to be respectable bros — reminds Dean of everything they used to have. Everything he’s decided he wants back.

Cas has to go and ruin that realization by saying, “I have to go back out there.”

His eyes are unfocused, looking at nothing in particular as he speaks. Dean shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Absolutely not. Are you insane?”

Cas turns to him, solemn and resigned.

“Dean, people _die_ on that road, and they don’t have to!”

“You don’t need to remind me of that!”

“No, you —” Cas huffs in frustration. “Dean, maybe we can trick him into thinking I’ll go with him. Maybe I can stop this.”  
  
“Yeah, or maybe he drags you to hell,” Dean snaps. This is not the conversation he wanted to have tonight. “Cas, I can’t lose you again!”

The teapot lets out a shrill whistle. Cas stares at Dean.

“Are you gonna get that?” Dean asks, and it comes out scratchy and pathetic.

Cas stands up without a word and walks into the kitchen. Dean watches as he moves the teapot off the stove and pours two mugs, bringing them into the living room. The “It’s all Greek to me!” mug he keeps for himself, handing the Star Wars one to Dean. Dean takes it without comment, rolling it in his hands. Cas bought this mug for him at a comic store in Winston because Dean joked once he wanted a novelty cup to match Cas’s. He can’t believe Cas kept it.

They both drink, Dean’s confession still hanging over them, unanswered. It’s a weighted silence, heavy in the air around them. Dean leaves it to Cas to speak first, watching as his friend considers his words.

“I was married,” Cas says, staring into his mug.

Dean blinks, first at the non-sequitor, and then at the way those three words fill in so many blanks and yet raise so many questions. _Married._ Cas was married. He never wore a ring, never talked about a spouse, but the fairy said “Adultery” and Cas looked guilty.

All Dean can think to say is, “What?”

“Her name is Daphne. Daphne Allen.” Cas sets the mug down on the coffee table, not bothering to put down a coaster, which is unlike him. “We met in college in a freshman orientation class. Our families were from the same area, so on our first break we agreed to drive home together to save money.” Cas leans back, drawing his quilt tighter around his shoulders. “We were good friends all through school, but never anything more. We actually lost track of one another after we graduated for quite some time, although I’d hear her name mentioned on occasion — she became a professor of Biblical history at another Texas university, and academia is a small world, to say the least.”

Cas fiddles with his blanket, and Dean watches him, a lump in his throat.

“I never told you this, because to tell you would open the door to so much I wanted to keep closed, but seven years ago I was in a terrible accident.” Cas’s fist clenches around the quilt. “Some friends and I were boating on Lake Travis in Austin, and we wrecked into a half-submerged tree in a shallow area. I was flung into the water and hit my head on the bottom. When they found me, I’d been under water for nearly six minutes.”

“Jesus,” Dean whispers, confused and shocked and grateful, yet again, to have Cas sitting next to him, alive and well.

“I was in a coma for three months. The doctors thought I was going to die. But I didn’t. I woke up, but I couldn’t remember anything. I might have come out of the water physically, but mentally I felt trapped in that lake. I didn’t recognize my own siblings.”

Cas rubs at his eyes, and Dean realizes he’s tearing up.

“But somehow I recognized Daphne. She drove four hours across the state to see me, and I knew her name. I couldn’t recall much else about her, but the fact I remembered anything at all was astonishing to everyone. She stayed with me for two weeks, and I slowly began to regain some of my memories — memories of her, of everyone else. Most were blurry, like watching through an old camcorder instead of being present, but any small improvement felt like climbing a mountain.”

Cas takes a calming sip of his tea before he continues, “Dean, I can’t describe how grateful I felt toward her. She treated me with more care than my own family. And when it was time for her to leave and go back home, I asked her to marry me because I was so desperate to have someone around me who I felt I could trust.”  
  
“And she said yes?” Dean asks, incredulous.

“She did.” Cas lets out a small laugh. “Turns out she’d been in love with me all through college. I’d never noticed. You know how blind I can be to those things.”

Dean huffs in silent agreement.

“She found a job teaching at the same university where I worked at the time, and she moved to be with me. We got married a year to the day after my accident. At that point in time I remembered most names and faces, and I remembered my job and my research enough to return to work after two years, but memories of specific moments and feelings often eluded me. She was a rock for me. Anything I had a question about, she would answer or find someone who could. I relied on her and I trusted her, and I mistook those feelings for love.”

“They’re not the same,” Dean says quietly. He would know. He loved Cas when he couldn’t trust him. Cas gives him a knowing look and a small nod of acceptance.

“Feelings were blurred for me, though,” he says. “I had a hard time deciphering them because I couldn’t recall what emotion fit what action. She cared for me and I cared for her, and intellectually that told me we were in love with one another. But as more of my memories came back, I realized I’d never been in love with anyone. Including Daphne. What I felt for her was admiration and loyalty and affection without passion or longing. I’d put her in an untenable position, and that had never been my intention. I truly didn’t know what I was doing when I asked her to marry me, but it didn’t change how guilty I felt when I realized the love I had for her was nothing like what my other married friends felt for their spouses.”

“But she loved you.” As much as Dean hates to identify with Cas’s wife, he can’t help it. He knows what it means to love Cas without question and without any sign the love is returned unequivocally.

“Yes,” Cas says sadly, “she did. So I stayed. I came to this epiphany three years after my accident, and it took her another two years to ask for a separation. I tried to love her. I tried to force it, but she could tell. She knew all my memories were back and our relationship had changed, and she knew I wasn’t in love with her. And it hurt her, and I hated myself for it. One day she’d had enough.”

“So you came here.”

“Daphne asked me to move out, and, in my guilt, I felt I should get as far away from her as possible so she could move on. Gabriel was here, so it seemed a good idea to head north at the time. And —” Cas waves a hand in the air. “And then I met you.”

“And you were still married,” Dean says, and it dawns on him that every time he tried to flirt with Cas, every time Cas moved away and subtly rejected him, it hadn’t been because Cas didn’t want him — Cas was still legally bound to Daphne.

“I wanted to tell you,” Cas confesses, “but I couldn’t seem to find the right way to say it. I was a coward. I worried the very idea of Daphne would drive you away; I worried you didn’t love me the same way. All the same, I planned to go see Daphne over Christmas break and draft divorce papers. I was going to come home and tell you everything. But she called me in October.”

“Before or after the gala?” Dean asks, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“Before. The same week.” Cas leans his head back against the couch, weary. “I told you academia is a small world, especially in pursuits like ours which often work hand in hand. Someone at the university knew Daphne, and some... gossip reached her. She knew I was spending all my time with a ‘handsome young man.’” Cas does air quotes, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Something you need to know about Daphne is she’s incredibly kind and selfless, but her family is... not. They’re traditionalists, fundamentalists, and they were angry at us for separating. Daphne told one of her sisters the rumor, and it spread amongst the rest of them. They’d worked her into a frenzy, telling her I was an abomination, a gay man using her as a beard; telling her I cheated on her — although we were separated and I hadn’t pursued you at all yet. She talked about filing a lawsuit, taking everything from our joint funds for her ‘emotional trauma.’ She didn’t sound like herself.”

“Fuck,” Dean says, heartfelt. “So the night when Bela saw us...”

“I panicked.” Cas looks at Dean. “I was so close to giving in and kissing you. And when Bela interrupted us, it dawned on me how foolishly I acted. I didn’t know who kept telling Daphne about my life in Jacksonville, but I did know if she had a witness to my so-called infidelity, she could ruin my life. So I left that night to go finalize the divorce. I intended to return home within the week.”

Cas runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up straight.

“But she couldn’t be talked down. I broke her heart, I know, and left her open to her irrational, bigoted family’s attacks. They’d convinced her to file for alimony and for more than three-quarters of our savings and assets, all because I’d been ‘unfaithful.’ Gabriel drove down to meet with me, and he told me to cut off all contact with you so it couldn’t be used against me in divorce court. I fought with him about it until he told me continuing to speak with you could get you dragged into the case as a witness, and I...” Cas swallows hard. “I could not subject you to that. So I gave him a message to pass along to you, and I decided to wait out the storm alone as best I could. I spent a year trying to talk her down and dealing with suits and countersuits, and all the while I assumed you knew at least enough of the story so as to understand why I wasn’t reaching out to you.”

Dean puts his head in his hands, angrier than he’s been since Cas showed up weeks ago, but the anger isn’t directed at Cas this time.

“Your fucking brother —”

“I know,” Cas says. “If it helps, the only time I’ve spoken to him since I found out was the night I got sick in Winston and was forced to stay with him. In a way, he acted exactly like Daphne’s family — he didn’t like you for whatever reason, so he took matters into his own hands and insinuated himself into a situation where he didn’t belong, all under the guise of protecting me. The irony is I’ll never forgive him for it.”

Cas sighs heavily, weary.

“In the end, Daphne realized how her family pitted her against me, using her emotional turmoil to try to gain something for themselves. We reconciled, as much as two people who’ve been locked in a vicious divorce can reconcile, and I left to move back here as soon as a simple dissolution of marriage was filed. The call I received the other day was Daphne, letting me know about a snag in the paperwork — more things I needed to do concerning our house’s mortgage and the bank account before she could sign the divorce papers. So I drove back down south and wrapped everything up, but now...”

“Now?”

“I’m a divorced man, Dean.” Cas smiles, worn and faint. “Daphne signed the papers two days ago. She was very kind in the end. She apologized for her anger, which I told her was not entirely unwarranted. And we parted amicably.”

Dean’s tea has gone cold in his mug, which he’s still clutching tightly. He sets it down, unsure what to do with his hands. Should he touch Cas? Should he hold back?

Cas answers that question for him with a huge yawn.

“Sorry,” he says, sleepy, once the yawn ends. “It was more emotionally taxing to tell you than I thought it would be. But I — I needed you to know it had nothing to do with you, and if I could take everything back I would call you myself, liability be damned.”

Cas looks at Dean, tired and earnest. “Dean, I cannot tell you how sorry I am. If I had known how you were suffering due to my absence, I would have come back.”

“Well, don’t go off on your own again,” Dean says, and he grabs Cas’s hand. “Stay with me, and we face this shit together."

Cas doesn't say anything in response, leaning his forehead against Dean's. They stay like that, sharing breaths, as the clock on the wall ticks down the seconds left in the night.


	18. Night 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for an "on-screen" suicide attempt in this chapter, which I realize might be especially upsetting to some. If you'd prefer not to read it, skip the section titled "8:01 p.m." I'll summarize what happens in the end notes.

**Night 22, 7:47 p.m.**

Dean’s exhausted — mentally, physically and emotionally — and he wishes he could’ve stayed at Cas’s forever.

After Cas’s confession the night before, the two of them sat quietly, unsure of their next move, Dean holding Cas’s hand. In the end, the bone deep weariness won out, and they both ended up collapsing in Cas’s bed.

When Dean previously imagined sharing a bed with Cas — and it happened more often than he’s proud of — he pictured a lot less actual sleeping. But sleep is all they did. Cas threw an arm over Dean’s waist, Dean kissed his forehead, and they both passed out.

Cas left to teach his morning class after breakfast, and Dean went back to his and Sam’s apartment to think.

He’s got a list of potential fairy expulsion spells written down, and he bought a one-pound bag of salt at Wal-Mart earlier today. Maybe he’ll go out to Highway 9 and sprinkle salt everywhere for the rest of his life. It would be better than doing nothing.

Dean taps his pen against his teeth, his vision blurring as he tries to read yet another “First Encounter: FAIRIES” forum. Internet people are crazy. He’s seen a real fairy, and the guy wasn’t wearing a pink tutu or dancing around with a star-shaped wand.

Regardless of his need to research, Dean’s thoughts keep circling back to Cas. He wonders if they’re _together_ now — Cas said I love you, Cas explained everything, Dean thinks he can forgive him, they slept in the same bed and, hell, snuggled... This “relationship” thing would be easier if either of them knew how to communicate, Dean muses.

He pulls out his phone to check his most recent texts. One from Sam saying he’s staying at Jess’s tonight ( _atta boy, Sammy_ ) and several from Cas — bits of his own research into the fairy problem, anecdotes about his classes today. They even text like a couple now, if your typical couple discussed whether a murderous fairy can be killed by silver bullets.

            Dean: I’m pretty sure the silver thing is werewolves, Cas.

He’s about to put his phone down when it vibrates, “Jody Mills” popping up on the screen. Dean frowns, answering.

“Jody?”

“Dean.” She sounds relieved. “Can you come up to the sheriff’s office? I have a case for you.”

Dean blinks, settling back in his chair. He’s barely spoken to Jody in months, except to say hi in passing when he sees her at the grocery store or at Ellen’s café. His relationship with Jody was strained when he quit — she wanted him to stay, he was too angry to listen to her — and he’s surprised she’d consider hiring him.

“Can’t Gordon or Jo handle it?” he asks, not meaning to be petulant, although that’s how it comes off.

Jody sighs. “We picked up a man behaving erratically on Highway 9 this afternoon.” It’s not much, but it’s enough for Dean’s heart to thud in his chest, his palms sweating. “He has no identification whatsoever — no driver’s license, no credit cards. The only thing in his pocket was a 1968 dollar bill. He said his name is Martin Creaser, and he’ll only speak to Dean Winchester.”

Dean closes his eyes. “ _Martin Creaser_? Jody, are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she says, flustered. “You think I don’t know the significance? We used to tell stories about him. ‘Don’t go out on the highway at night, you’ll disappear like Martin Creaser!’ Dean, I don’t know what to make of it, and he won’t talk. Unless it’s to you.”

Dean’s already pulling on his shoes. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

///

 

**8:01 p.m.**

Martin Creaser is dirty. His plaid shirt and overalls are caked with mud, his boots are worn at the heels and his face is creased with thick wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. His graying hair is thin and receding, and he looks around the room with the skittishness of a man trapped in a fish bowl — which, he might as well be. Dean asked Jody not to watch from the other side of the one-way mirror, and he’s lucky she trusts him enough to give him any privacy, but Creaser probably still feels eyes on him. After all, that’s how the woods around Highway 9 feel all the time. And Creaser spent more than 40 years trapped in those woods.

Dean introduces himself, and Creaser nods, knowing. Of course he knows. He’s been with _them_.

“What happened to you Martin?”

Creaser looks down at his dirt-cracked hands, a frown furrowing his brow.

“I made a mistake,” he says, and his voice cracks. “I made a deal with Wayne Whittaker.”

“Wayne Whittaker?” Dean doesn’t write the name on the notepad he carried in with him.

“I don’t know his real name.” Creaser looks and sounds as if he’s somewhere far away, his eyes unseeing as he stares across the room. “He introduced himself as Wayne Whittaker, ’s all I ever called him. I walked into his circle back in ‘71, and he told me he’d let me go — if I promised to protect the ring.”

“The ring?” Dean prods, but he knows exactly what Creaser is talking about.

“The fairy ring.” Creaser picks at a sore on his hand. He hasn’t aged a day, Dean realizes. Still in his early 60s, looks like. “And I tried to. But I failed. The highway men came through and they ran right over it. It broke Wayne’s ring, and he was angry.” Creaser shudders. “He came for me.”

“He took you,” Dean supplies.

“Like he wants to take your friend.” Creaser stares at Dean, an unerring sharpness in his gaze. Dean leans back in his chair to put some distance between them. “Castiel Novak. Like he took the girl. Sometimes he wants blood. Sometimes, when he's real angry, he wants the live ones. He sent me to tell you he gets what he wants.”

“Martin—,” Dean says, and Creaser reaches across the table, grabbing Dean’s arm. Shocked, Dean tries to yank away, but Creaser’s grip is too strong.

“They don’t let humans into their world,” Creaser says, eyes wild. “Wayne traps ‘em in the in-between place! We don’t age! We don’t sleep, or eat, or feel anything but desperation to get back!”

“Dean!” Jody bursts into the room, grabbing Creaser by the shoulder and pushing him back into his chair. He flops down, yielding like a rag doll.

Jody is reaching for her handcuffs when Creaser says, “Wait, please, tell me. My wife...” and Jody pauses, glancing uneasily over her shoulder at Dean.

Dean’s lips part and he looks at Jody, both of them watching him. He knows the answer to Creaser’s unspoken question. It’s a small town, and he remembers seeing the obituary in the local newspaper as a kid. Some of Carla Creaser’s grandkids went to school with him; they left class early one day for the funeral. Dean’s homeroom signed cards for them to read when they got back.

He sees it in Creaser’s eyes — the moment he puts together what Dean isn’t saying. Dean recognizes the crazed look on his face a beat too late.

“Jody!” But Creaser’s already got his hand on her gun. Jody twists her upper body to grab on to it, trying to wrestle it from him, but Creaser shoves her back with an elbow to the gut. Dean lunges across the desk to help her, and Creaser leans back in his chair and kicks out, bashing Dean in the side of the head, hard, and sending him tumbling back to the floor.

Dean hears Jody yell and then a loud shot. He tilts his head up, dizzy, nose aching from another indirect hit. He see the puddle of blood on the floor before Jody’s shocked face comes into view. There’s blood splattered across the front of her uniform, droplets on her face.

Feeling sick to his stomach, Dean turns his head slowly. Creaser slumps over in his chair, breath coming out in quick, sharp bursts, a gaping wound in his chest. From the sound of his wheezing, Creaser’s hit a lung. He slides to the floor, and Jody catches him, blood on her hands as she lays him down on the cold tile.

“Martin,” she says, “Martin!”

Dean takes a moment to close his eyes, dropping his head to the floor and listening to the sound of every officer in the building running their way. He opens them again and pushes off the ground to help Jody try to save the dying man.

 ///

 

**11:23 p.m.**

Cas rubs the scratchy washcloth between Dean’s fingers for what feels like the hundredth time, looking for blood that’s no longer there, blood Dean felt seep through his fingers as he frantically tried to keep Creaser alive. Dean watches Cas attempt to clean him up and doesn’t say anything. He was right there, and an old man got the upper hand on him. Now Jody’s questioning her every move, the Texas Rangers are taking up the case, and Dean will never work for the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office ever again.

And Martin Creaser is on the verge of dying at the Jacksonville Hospital.

“It’s not your fault,” Cas says quietly. He stops rubbing and holds Dean’s hands between both of his, kneeling in between Dean’s legs on the floor as Dean sits on the edge of the tub. “It’s not Jody’s, either. He was a mild man for most of the interrogation; you had no reason to suspect he’d do what he did.”

Dean takes his hand out of Cas’s to rub at his nose. It’s going to be crooked for good after all this abuse. He’s going to look like fucking Owen Wilson.

“I tried to reach him, and I couldn’t. If Jody loses her license over this I’ll never forgive myself. He was my interview.”

“She won’t lose her license.” Cas grabs on to Dean’s knee. His hand is wet. “Neither will you. You’re both excellent at your jobs.”

“But I saw him, Cas,” Dean says. “I saw the look on his face. I recognized it. As soon as he knew he’d lost her, he was gone.”

Cas drops the washcloth in the tub and pulls Dean to his feet.

“Let’s go to bed,” he says, and Dean lacks the energy to argue. He lets Cas pull him into the bedroom, lets Cas undress him. It’s not sexy, although it should be, considering they’ve yet to see each other this naked, curling up under the sheets in their boxers.

Cas reaches out to Dean, running a thumb over his cheek.

“I love you,” he says, “and I’m staying.”

Dean doesn’t know how Cas knew he needed to hear that — maybe they are made for each other. He can’t stop thinking about the look on Martin Creaser’s face when he realized the love of his life was gone, dead for decades while he was trapped just out of reach, and Dean needs to know Cas won’t go. Won’t leave Dean here, alone and all-too-aware of what’s happened to the man he loves.

“You can’t let them take you,” Dean whispers, and Cas scoots closer to him. He kisses Dean’s eyelids, his cheek, his forehead.

“I won’t,” Cas whispers back, his mouth an inch from Dean’s. “I want to stay with you.”

Dean closes his eyes. He feels so, so heavy and worn.

“You’re not guilty,” he tells Cas as he drifts off, but his last waking thought is _I am._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of section "8:01":
> 
> Dean goes to interrogate Martin Creaser at Jody's request. Creaser tells Dean he was kidnapped by the fairy, who appeared as a man named Wayne Whittaker, after Creaser failed to keep Whittaker's ring safe from the highway construction. Whittaker released Creaser to warn Dean that he's coming for Cas. Creaser, who hasn't aged in his time in the fairy world, asks Dean if his wife is still alive. When he realizes she's dead he tries to kill himself with Jody's gun.


	19. Night 23

**Night 23, 9:16 p.m.**

Dean spent the day at Cas’s, ignoring Sam’s worried calls (“Dean, I heard about the homeless guy who shot himself in front of you and Jody. Jess heard he’s stabilizing... Dean, you guys helped save him, you don’t... Please talk to me.”) and watching mindless daytime television. Cas Novak, the man who’d never seen _Star Wars_ until Dean forced him to watch them all in one weekend, records every episode of _Days of Our Lives_ on his TiVo. It’s insane.

Cas texted him once he left work, and it makes Dean’s gut twist to think about him driving back home along Highway 9. He tries to tell himself it’s still early, too early for Wayne Whittaker to be prowling the highway. He watches the clock after 9 hits, counting the minutes as he waits for Cas to walk in.

When the door opens, Dean sits up straight on the couch, letting the throw blanket fall from his shoulders and puddle around his lap.

Cas is dripping wet, his hair matted to his forehead and rain falling from his coat to the floor, making little puddles in the entryway. When he looks up, his eyes are red.

“Cas?” Dean asks, worried. He walks to the door, helping Cas shrug out of his trench coat. “Did you go swimming?”

Cas slides to the floor ungracefully, attempting to pull off his shoes as Dean watches with increasing concern.

“There was a wreck,” Cas says to his shoes. “Head-on collision on the second bridge at the closed part of the highway. Two dead, one injured.”

“What?” Dean drops down so he’s at eye level with Cas. “How? That’s what the lights are for, to prevent shit like that!”

“I don’t know. The rain was so heavy out there, Dean; they must not have seen each other before it was too late and...”

“How did you get home?” Dean grabs one of Cas’s hands to ground him. He worked horrible wrecks so often in his early career he learned to get used to it, but he remembers the first time he pulled up to a fatal accident. He remembers the victim’s blood on the seat and the windshield, drying cracked long after the funeral home took the body away. He’ll never forget it. Cas looks like he’s in shock, and Dean knows the feeling.

“Jody and Jo were out there.” Well, that’s a relief. At least the Rangers didn’t ask the county judge to put Jody on administrative leave. “They re-routed us back down County Road 2562. But Dean, what if it was —”

“Him,” Dean finishes for Cas. “It was. It had to be.” He rubs a hand over his mouth. It could have been Cas. _Jesus_. He probably meant for it to be Cas, the fucking bastard. “I’m going to go out there, okay?”

“No.” Cas grabs Dean’s arm as he stands. “What are you going to do Dean? They’re already dead; you can’t do them any good. We don’t have any plan; we don’t know how to stop him!”

“I can talk to him,” Dean says, pulling his arm away. “He doesn’t want me or he would’ve taken me by now. He’s had plenty of chances.”

Cas glares down at his hands, hanging between his knees and dripping water from his wet sleeves onto the floor.

“Then I’m coming with you,” he says, and his voice is firm. “This is because of _me_. He wants _me_. I should confront him.”

He looks back up at Dean, who bites back every urge inside him to argue, to tell Cas no. This isn’t his decision to make.

“I can’t lose you,” he says instead, broken. It comes back to that, every time.

Cas stands up, slipping on the wet tile. Dean grabs his elbow to steady him. Once Cas is on his feet, he tugs Dean toward him, standing slightly on his toes to kiss him. Dean lets him, wrapping his arms around Cas and pressing their bodies together, deepening the kiss as Cas brings up a hand to cup his cheek.

Their lips part, but they stay locked in the embrace. Cas brushes Dean’s hair back from his forehead.

“You won’t lose me,” he says, searching Dean’s eyes. “You’re the reason I’m here. You’re the reason I’ve stayed.”

 ///

**9:47 p.m.**

Department of Public Safety troopers are crowding the scene when Dean pulls the Impala off the road into the gravel, parking it behind the chip spreader. The entire construction zone is blocked off, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies re-routing traffic as DPS accident reconstructionists work the wreck.

Dean and Cas walk behind the equipment, staying out of sight of emergency personnel — not like they’re paying attention. The troopers are busy trying to take pictures of the tire marks before they wash away in the downpour, climbing into the mangled heaps of the two cars to gather any relevant evidence. Dean sees a teddy bear lying in the mud at the side of the road, marked with masking tape, thrown from one of the vehicles. He looks away, taking deep, calming breaths.

It reminds him too much of the night he found his dad out here, dying.

He spots Jody and Jo on the far end of the valley, talking to Benny, who’s directing the traffic from Winston back up to the nearest county road. The sheriff’s office must be short on deputies tonight, or else this wreck must not be considered entirely accidental — there’s no other reason for the sheriff and the department’s best detective to be here, checking out a wreck that falls under DPS jurisdiction.

“Come on,” Dean says, tugging Cas toward the woods. He doesn’t want the women to spot them. They’ve got no reason to be out here tonight.

The brush in the woods isn’t thick, but the mud is. It sticks to their boots, squelching with every step. The rain is muted under the canopy of the trees, but it’s still pouring enough to drench Dean and Cas, rain running in little rivers down their noses.

Dean leads Cas back toward the pasture — toward the ring. When Cas sees it, he sucks in a breath.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, kneeling to get a better look as Dean sweeps his flashlight over the area. In the dark and the rain, the ring has a faint glow to it, marking it as unnatural — and to Dean, deadly. He puts a hand on Cas’s back, ready to grab hold of him if necessary.

“Thank you,” a voice says from off to the right, and Dean and Cas jump, Dean dragging Cas toward him. Wayne Whittaker tilts his head, an unearthly glow beneath his skin illuminating his amused expression. “My people do craft wondrous things using your realm’s natural gifts, a talent few humans have ever learned. This is not mine, unfortunately. Your people destroyed mine.”

Cas steps back, bumping into Dean’s chest, and Dean puts his arm around him, puller him closer.

“Why are you here?’ Whittaker asks, and he looks genuinely curious. “Did you come to give yourself up? To stop the carnage?” He glances in the direction of the highway, where the red and blue of the emergency lights faintly breach the woods.

“Why Cas?” Dean asks, pulling Cas closer to him. “He didn’t break your deal. Martin Creaser did. And you let him go.”

“Martin Creaser is a liar.” Whittaker steps into the ring, and it shines brighter. The flowers seem to stretch, bending upright toward him, and the mushrooms grow an inch. “He promised to protect my ring, and he did not. He let this —” Whittaker waves toward the highway. “— monstrosity destroy an ancient and sacred place. But he served his time.”

“What about the others?” Cas asks. “The girl who disappeared? Everyone who died?”

“Sacrifices must be made,” Whittaker says simply. “Blood must be spilt to atone for this broken promise and to insure I still have a connection to this world.”

“You killed my dad,” Dean whispers, and his eyes burn with unshed tears. “And for what? So you could have a vacation?”

“You make the best deals here.” Whittaker grins, and his teeth are pointed, where before they were normal. He looks more otherworldly by the minute. “I give you good crops or help you craft beautiful shoes, etcetera, you give me your firstborn to be raised in the land of my people — we have a shortage of children, see. It’s an excellent business. But when a deal is broken — when I don’t get a firstborn child, when my rings are not protected — I take my payment in blood. When you continue to trample upon the ruins of the broken agreement, I take your guilty to be judged.”

“To live in the in-between,” Dean says. Whittaker shrugs.

“It’s payment for the wrongs you have done to the fey. And souls and blood both provide power so I can keep crossing over to this world after my portals are damaged or destroyed.”

“It doesn’t sound like payment. It sounds like you use death and destruction to cause more death and destruction,” Cas says. He shakes in Dean’s arms, but his voice is firm. “You want me to come with you, so you can drain me for more trips into this world, to cause more pain? No. I will not go willingly.”

Whittaker steps out of the circle, and it wilts.

“You don’t have to go willingly,” he says, his voice unerringly even and calm. “I can make you go.”

“No,” Dean says, “you can’t. Not when he’s with me.” And somehow he knows it’s true — Whittaker can’t reach Cas when Dean is protecting him. Maybe he truly can’t take someone who doesn’t want to go, maybe he just can’t get past Dean for whatever reason. “And why not take me, huh? I’m guilty! I don’t want my little brother to have a successful life if it means leaving me. I cut off my friends when they do anything to upset me! I couldn’t save my dad or Martin Creaser; I pushed Cas away when he was trying to tell me the truth!” Dean tightens his grip on Cas, who looks back at him, eyes wide and confused.

“I have your blood, boy,” Whittaker says. “The blood of a poor excuse for a father. And I _want_ this one.” He points at Cas, and his body is consumed by the light, till there’s nothing visible of Whittaker but a faint silhouette. The ground shakes under them and the ambient noise of the forest and the sirens back on the highway fade away as the booming thud of Whittaker’s voice hits Dean’s ears. He knows Cas hears the song, so he yanks him back, away from the will-o’-the-wisp. They fall to the ground, mud coating them both, and Dean tries to reach in his pocket for the container of salt he brought with him.

 _Stupid_ , this was stupid. To think they could talk Whittaker out of his rampage, to think they’d win. Whittaker doesn’t have some broken moral compass — there’s no compass. There’s no righteous mission to protect what’s his. He wants people to sell their souls to him in exchange for their children’s lives. There’s no bargaining with something like that.

“Dean!” Cas yells over the booms, “Dean, I need to go with him!”

Dean rolls them, pinning Cas beneath him. He looks at the will-o’-the-wisp, watches it sweep up stray branches and pull up clumps of grass as it calls to Cas and attempts to immobilize him. And he knows what he needs to do.

With a firm shove, Dean sends Cas sliding through the mud in the opposite direction, turning to make a leaping tackle of the figure he can barely see inside the light.

Dean falls through empty air, arms closing around nothing. He hits the ground hard.

///

When he wakes up, there’s a beautiful brunette woman leaning over him, her brow furrowed in concern.

“You’re awake,” she says, letting out a relieved sigh. She smiles at him, her face brightening. “I felt so worried. We don’t get many humans traveling through here these days.”

Dean bolts up, scanning the area around him in shock. He’s in the woods but... not. These woods are brighter, filled with sunlight and covered in brush. Mushrooms and flowers grow everywhere — on the tree trunks, on the rocks, between his fingers. He looks toward Highway 9 and sees no flashing lights, hears no cars rushing by.

“What the fuck —”

“You’re safe,” the woman says. “The leprechaun is gone.” She sticks her hand right in his face. “I’m Gilda.”

Dean looks at her hand and back at her.

“Oh,” Gilda says, withdrawing. “Do you humans not greet each other in this way anymore? I apologize. It’s been at least a decade since I last met one of you.”

“No,” Dean says, scrambling up. A flower near his ankle actually _clings_ to him, and he shakes it off, panting. “I can’t be here. I can’t be in fucking fairy world! Cas is back there, and Whittaker is gonna —”

 _Shit_ , he’s going to throw up. Dean bends over, hands on his knees, dry heaving. Gilda rubs his back awkwardly.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I know a spell to send all things to their intended place. It should send you back. And the leprechaun won’t touch your lover — not when he believes I’m nearby.”

Dean takes in a deep gulp of air, trying to parse what she’s saying.

“Leprechaun?”

“Yes.” Gilda nods. “A nasty one, too. I don’t know his true name — if I did, I could bind him. But his portal was always too close to mine for comfort, at least until your people destroyed it, for which I am so grateful. I’m only sorry he found other, darker magic to get himself back there.”

Dean looks up at her. He doesn’t know who she is, but his best — and only — option right now is to trust her.

“How do I stop him?” he asks. “He’s killing people — people I... People I care about.”

Gilda's eyes darken as she stares out across the woods.

“You use the same spell I’ll use on you, but it won’t last long,” she says. “He always finds a way back. His blood magic is strong. The way to stop him is to bind him with his true name, and none of the other fey seem to know it.”

“Aren’t there humans here?” Dean asks, frantic. “The ones he stole — they have to know his name!”

Gilda smiles sadly, shaking her head.

“My mother was one of the human babes,” she says. “He does not raise them. He sells them, sometimes exchanging a dead fairy babe for a live human.”

“Jesus.” Dean is floored. “And no one stops him? You _buy_ babies?”

“No.” Gilda straightens, standing tall and firm. “Not anymore. Those ways are long dead. We respect humans. And I knew one, once...” Gilda’s voice trails off. “But that is a tale I cannot tell you now. You need to go, before you remain too long and find yourself trapped here. I no longer have a functional portal to return you through.”

She pushes on his shoulder, moving him to the side a few inches. Dean looks down and sees he’s standing in the fairy ring — broken on this side to match the one back home.

“What happened to your portal?” he asks her, and Gilda shakes her head.

“No time,” she says, and she walks around the edge of the ring. “You must pay attention to the spell. I cannot repeat it. Once it is over, you will hopefully be pulled back to your land.” She catches his eye and holds his gaze. “If you see a woman there with red hair, a woman named Charlie — please tell her all is forgiven.”

Before Dean can react, she begins to chant. “Lich sha-hayt. Uh keeya shun, augus small un sorashun, augus phooetek en shia, en rache connecsha...”

“Wait,” Dean protests, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know the language, I can’t...”

“Kum savaltcha,” Gilda shouts over him. “Ar noyang, kun enna, ret augus, kuum doinsha getta wabasach shul!”

The world around him disappears in a burst of light.

///

**10:00 p.m.**

Cas is there, kneeling next to Dean when he wakes up, home once more. He groans, rolling his head to face forward and take pressure off his nose. He hears the radio chatter from the first responders at the wreck, feels the rain on his face. He’s never been so relieved to wake up covered in mud.

“Dean,” Cas breathes. “Fuck, Dean! You — You disappeared! I thought...”

Cas cups his cheek, and Dean lets his eyes fall closed, leaning into Cas’s hand.

“Tell you all about it on the ride home? I have a new lead.”

“A new lead to what?” another voice asks from somewhere behind them.

Dean groans and presses his face into the mud, just daring to peek up. Jody stands a few feet away with her hands on her hips and rain dripping from her sheriff’s hat, the one she rarely wears. Jo is right behind her, a confused furrow between her brows as she looks between Dean and Cas in the dirt and an angry Jody.

Dean pushes himself into a sitting position, supported by Cas.

“When did you get here?” he asks weakly, and Jo says, “We heard Cas yelling and wanted to check it out. What’d ya do, slip and fall on your head again?”

Well, at least they didn’t see him vanish and reappear. Dean glances to Cas for help, but Cas’s eyes are wide and uncertain. Looks like he’s taking the lead here.

“Jody,” Dean says, and he hesitates. He’s a good liar, but lying to Jody feels like lying to his older sister — the woman who mentored him the entire time he was on her force, the woman who baked him casserole after casserole when Dad died. But he doesn’t want to drag her or Jo into this mess, especially since she already feels like Creaser shooting himself was her fault. “I think there’s someone maliciously targeting the Highway 9 site.”

It’s the truth, with some key facts omitted.

Jody purses her lips, looking at Jo.

“Detective Harvelle,” she says, “will you tell Dean what we found tonight?”

Jo shifts her weight from heel to toe, a nervous habit Dean recognizes.

“Sheriff, he’s a civilian now, and Cas —”

“Harvelle. Please.” That’s an order for sure. Jo straightens up and flips open her notepad, holding a hand over it to keep the ink from bleeding in the rain.

“Both traffic lights were green according to witnesses. Driver of the Ford recalls seeing a bright flash of light just before the light changed colors. He was partially blinded but kept going. The accident occurred seconds later.” She pauses. “Driver of the Chevy is deceased, as is his passenger, so... We don’t know what they might have seen.”

“The child?” Cas asks, and Jody says, “Miraculously uninjured, thank God.”

Jo flips her notebook closed.

“If someone is tampering with the stoplights, then they could be charged with murder. Dean, you have to tell us what you know.”

“I —” Jo watches him warily, another casualty of his past year of binge drinking and solitude. He owes both of these women so much. He owes them the truth. “I know it’s something unnatural. Something... not human.”

Jo drops her head back, groaning.

“Forget it,” she snaps, shoving her notepad into the pocket of her raincoat. “If you’re still that pissed at me because of the Gordon shit, then don’t tell me. But God, Dean, people are dying! At least tell Jody the truth!”

Jo turns on her heel, storming back through the dark wood toward the highway. Dean opens his mouth to call out to her, but Jody shakes her head.

“Let her go,” she says, her voice softer now. “She held the kid’s hand and told him his parents were dead. It’s been a rough night.” She sighs heavily. “Now, get up out of the mud, both of you.”

Cas and Dean stand, and they step toward Jody. Her eyes are drawn to the ring, taking it in. Her lips twist as she considers it.

“Martin Creaser?” Jody asks, looking back up at Dean for confirmation of the man’s identity. He nods. “And you know what brought him back?”

“Maybe.” It’s Cas who responds, his voice hoarse. “We’ve seen him — or it. He’s not human.”

Jody rubs a hand along her forehead, bumping up her hat.

“And it’s related to the accidents on the road?”

“Yes,” Dean says. “He causes them.”

Jody seems unsurprised by this revelation.

“Martin said as much. He’s awake, and babbling so much about fairies they’re going to take him to a psych ward.” She stares at the ring. “But I’m starting to think he knows what he’s talking about.”

“I think he does, ma’am.”

“Don’t ma’am me, Winchester,” Jody says sharply. “Just tell me what I can do to make this stop. I’ve got a Ranger on my tail for the next week at least, so I can’t be sneaking around out here. But anything you need, I’ll get it for you.”

“Well,” Dean says, “I could use a working phone number for Charlie Bradbury.”

Jody, bless her, appears skeptical but simply says, “I can get that.”

///

 

**10:53 p.m.**

Dean leans his head against the tile wall of Cas’s shower, letting the water pound at his back and wash away the mud. Two more dead tonight, and he’s taking a thirty minute shower to avoid Cas. He’s a moron. A moron who needs to stop letting fear control his life.

He knows what’s going to happen once he steps out of this room. He saw the look on Cas’s face when he fell back into the wood, the relief and the... _love_. There’s nothing between them anymore — well, nothing other than a demented leprechaun and a cursed highway, no big deal — and tonight should be the night they celebrate being alive by _fucking finally_ (or finally fucking) taking their relationship to the next level.

Which should be an easy step to take, seeing as he’s dreamed about it for so long. Dean and Cas becoming _Dean and Cas — The Couple_. But Dean’s hand shakes when he turns off the water.

It’s _big._ That’s all. Big and wonderful and scary, and no matter what happens between Dean and Cas tonight, there will still be a cloud over them because of the highway and the accidents and Dean’s lost job and friends and nearly a year spent angry and apart. Dean wipes the condensation off the bathroom mirror and stares at his gaunt face.

Having sex with Cas, being _loved_ by Cas won’t fix everything in his fucked up life. He knows that. Hell, it might complicate things even more.

Just — what if it’s awkward, or bad? Or worse, what if it doesn’t happen at all? What if Cas changes his mind or bolts again? What if Dean is putting too much weight on this relationship and it breaks under his neediness? What if, what if, what if?

But it would be idiotic to say that losing Cas again, to the light or anything else, would hurt worse just ‘cause they’ve slept together. Dean’s too far gone now. Losing Cas will hurt the same, feel like a bad hangover and the aftermath of a car wreck and his friends’ disappointed faces all rolled up in one, no matter the outcome of tonight.

Cas said he’s here to stay. Dean knows he needs to take him at his word. He’s trusted Cas with his life these past weeks. Time to trust him with his heart.

Dean takes a deep breath and lets it out. Then he ties one of Cas’s scratchy blue towels around his waist. (If they’re really getting together, Dean’s gonna make Cas go to Target and buy better ones. But this will do for now.) He’s not getting dressed. He can’t lose his nerve, and he knows he will if he puts his clothes back on.

Dean Winchester, nervous about sex. That’s a new one. Sam would tease him endlessly for this.

He steps out of the bathroom. The television’s on in the living room, playing a mindless late night infomercial. The carpet hides Dean’s footsteps as he walks down the short hallway, pausing in the open doorway. No sign of Cas in the living room or kitchen. Dean turns the TV off and walks back down the hall to the master bedroom, pushing the door open with a cautious, “Cas?”

The bed is empty, but the door to the bathroom stands slightly open, steam wafting through. With the television off Dean hears the shower running in the master bath. He considers sitting on the bed in his towel, then decides it’s kind of rude to put a big damp spot on the comforter. Maybe he should get undressed? Lay himself out, naked as the day he was born, à la Burt Reynolds posing on that bearskin rug? Dean scratches absent-mindedly at his lower belly. If this was some chick or dude he picked up at the bar, that would be the option he’d choose.

But this is Cas.

Dean drops the towel and strides into the bathroom, projecting a confidence he doesn’t feel.

Cas’s back is to Dean as he scrubs his face under the torrent of water, and Dean can’t help but admire his backside because _damn_ , he always knew Cas hid a fine body under his too-big suits and his lumpy trench coat. He watches the water run down Cas’s tanned back and his perfect ass, and he swallows hard before opening the shower door and stepping right into the spray, wrapping his arms around Cas from behind.

Cas jumps at the unexpected touch, hitting Dean in the face — again — and causing his injured nose to throb in pain.

“Fuck,” Dean groans as Cas twists in his arms, saying “Wh— Dean!?” and slipping on the wet tile. He grasps at Dean’s shoulders to keep his balance, which has the unintended effect of bringing them both down with a dull thud. After a moment of stunned, pained silence — it hurts to land on your naked ass on hard tile— they take in their tangled limbs and mutual dumbstruck expressions and begin laughing simultaneously.

“Fuck,” Dean says again with feeling, a lightness replacing the nerves in his stomach as he watches Cas’s eyes crinkle, his head thrown back as he laughs. “And this is the first fucking time I’ve seen you naked, and we...” He laughs again. “Well, that’s not what I had planned.”

Cas untangles his legs from Dean, still laughing as he reaches up to turn off the spray. Dean watches Cas settle back on the floor of the shower with a quiet, awkward smile. This night has been miserable and he’s positive his nose is bleeding again, but right now he lets himself feel joy for the moment they’re in. Ridiculous, uninhibited joy, in spite of everything.

Cas leans forward, pressing his washcloth under Dean’s nose.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Dean jokes, and Cas shakes his head, smiling fondly.

“Well, if _someone_ hadn’t surprised me in the shower...”

“Oh come on, _you’re_ the one who took me out.”

“Because you came up behind me and startled me, Dean.”

“Semantics.” Dean pulls the washcloth back. Only a little bloody, thankfully, though it's that gross black color that comes from an old wound getting reopened. How sexy. “Uh, so... you wanna get outta here?”

Cas stands up, giving Dean an up close and personal view of his steadily hardening cock. So not turned off by the bloody nose, then. Dean licks his lips and takes the hand Cas offers him, careful to keep his balance this time as he stands.

“Bed?” Cas asks, raising an eyebrow, and Dean can only nod in response.

They slip and stumble their way into the bedroom, Cas running a towel over his body and hair as they go, dropping it carelessly on the floor as they reach the bed. Dean’s misgivings have vanished, lost in the tumble inside the shower and the brightness of Cas’s smile, and he kisses Cas with a hunger, running his hands along the bare skin he used to dream of touching. When Cas pushes him back onto the bed, Dean surrenders willingly.

They fumble together, both still wet from the shower, aroused and eager and awkward, and Dean forgets the heartache of the night and the fear of the road and the fairy world when Cas gets a hand around both their cocks. Everything falls away, and all that exists is Cas’s mouth on his, Cas’s hand and his cock and the pleasure and pressure building between his legs.

Dean gets off first, panting into Cas’s mouth as he comes, mind blessedly blank. Cas leans back to watch Dean finish coming all over his stomach, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

“Shut up,” Dean breathes before Cas can say anything, but he grins regardless. “Cocky.”

“Yeah.” Cas grabs a hold of Dean’s thighs and pushes them further apart, pressing his still-hard cock between Dean’s wet ass checks. “Very much so.”

Dean watches Cas rut against him, his eyes falling closed and mouth falling open as his cock rides the curve of Dean’s ass, sliding over his hole in a way that has Dean pushing back against him. There’s no time for that now, but Dean manages to think _later_ in the midst of his post-orgasmic fog and Cas’s loud panting.

Cas comes quietly, bending over to press his forehead into Dean’s chest, breath coming out in huffs Dean feels across his skin as Cas’s come hits his cock and balls. _God_. He can’t help but laugh as he runs a hand through Cas’s damp hair, waiting for him to come down from the high. Of course Dean ended up being the one covered in bodily fluids. He’s gonna have to take another fucking shower.

“I needed that,” Dean says, even though it was quick and messy and his ass is sore from the fall and he feels another bruise forming on his nose.

Cas lifts his face, settling down against Dean and resting his chin on Dean’s chest, grimacing at the squishy feeling of the come between them.

“Smart move, professor.”

Cas lazily flips him off, then says, “This time you can enter the shower with me so there are no surprises.” A corner of his mouth ticks up in a lopsided grin. “Dean?”

Dean pushes Cas’s hair around, admiring the way it springs back up when he tries to push it flat. “Mmmhmm?”

“I love you.”

 _This is it_ , Dean supposes. The moment of truth. How he responds here determines far more than the sex could, and strangely he’s not anxious at all when he says, “I love you too.”

It's almost worth the misery he's been through to see the gummy smile that puts on Cas's face.


	20. Day 01

**Day 01, 9:13 a.m.**

Dean wakes late with Cas wrapped around him, and he carefully burrows his nose into Cas’s hair. This is the life. This is what he wants — to sleep soundly at night, to have Cas fuck him into the mattress, to wake up curled together, to see each other every damn day. He’s determined it’s what he’s going to get.

But there’s business they have to take care of first.

Dean rolls over, waking Cas, who grumbles senselessly as he sits up.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” He pokes Cas’s cheek, and Cas swats at him. “We gotta go meet Charlie Bradbury.”

Dean doesn’t have much of a plan here — Charlie knew Gilda, so hopefully she knows of Whittaker. That’s as far as he’s gotten, but he’s worked with less. He and Cas get dressed — slowly, ‘cause they can’t stop checking each other out — and make their way to the car. Dean dials the number for Charlie Jody sent him.

She answers after three rings.

“Hello?”

“Charlie? Uh, this is Dean. Dean Winchester.”

“Dean!” Her voice blooms into something happy and delighted. She’s always so cheery, Charlie. “It’s been ages! Did you get stuck in an alternate dimension?”

He laughs half-heartedly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. Kind of. Charlie, tell me you’re in town.”

“Yeah, I’m at the farm, but I’m leaving for a comic convention in Seattle tomorrow." Her voice takes on a concerned tone. "Dean, is everything okay?”

“No, it's not.” Cas looks at him, questioning. “Look, uh — Charlie, I need your help and I’m headed your way.”

“Oh — okay,” Charlie says. “Uh, sure, come on over. Let me just get off the phone to um, clean... How long will it take you to get here?”

“Thirty minutes. See ya soon.” He hangs up before she can protest, tossing his phone onto the seat between him and Cas. Cas raises his eyebrows.

“You’re worrying her,” he says.

Dean grunts in response.

If they’re going to solve this problem before someone else gets killed, time is of the essence. He only hopes Charlie won’t slam the door in their faces when Dean explains why they’re there.

///

**9:48 a.m.**

Charlie does not slam the door in their faces.

She doesn’t appear to be at all that surprised by their tale, curled up in her recliner and listening to Dean and Cas describe the light on the highway and the broken circle in the woods. She sits silent and stone-faced through the description of Wayne Whittaker and his “sacrifices,” and she says nothing until Dean finishes talking about Gilda and how the fairy saved him.

“Gilda,” Charlie says, and her hand shakes where it holds her coffee mug. Her eye twitches.

“She knew you,” Dean says, leaning forward, angling his body toward Charlie. He needs her to trust him enough to tell him everything she knows about the fairy folk and their world. “She said to tell you you’re forgiven.”

Charlie laughs, a hysterical edge to it.

“Gilda,” she repeats, standing abruptly and pacing the living room. Dean and Cas watch in silence. “Oh my god, I thought... I thought she’d forgotten me.”

“Charlie,” Cas says, “what happened with Gilda? How did you meet her?” He sees her hesitance and adds, “Please. It might be important in helping us stop the leprechaun.”

Charlie covers her mouth with her hand, breathing out harshly. Then she drops her hand, looking at them.

“I was a teenager,” she says, “and I found this beautiful circle in the woods behind our pasture. I just... walked into it, and walked out in another world.”

“The world where I was,” Dean says.

Charlie nods.

“The fairy land. It was beautiful — a mirror image of here, but more...natural. And without so much technology, which kind of sucked. But Gilda was there, and she made me want to return again and again.”

Charlie bites her lip, eyes teary. Dean knows that look, has seen it on his own face in the mirror over the months Cas was gone and he believed they'd never meet again.

“Looking back on it now, I know I loved her. She was gorgeous and kind and so earnest about the changes she wanted to make in her world. I admired her, and I kept her portal a secret. She would use it to come see me, and I would use it to go see her. I promised her I’d always protect it.”

“It’s broken,” Cas says, because he doesn’t have a lot of tact. Dean elbows him in the ribs, but he presses on. “What happened?”

Charlie stares down at her shoes.

“I broke it," she says, guilty. "My parents — When they died on the highway, I asked her to use her magic to save them. She said no, it was against the laws of nature, and I... I wanted to punish her for it. So I marched out there, and I ripped a hole in the ring, knowing it would never work the same way again. Knowing I’d cut her off from me.” She rubs at her eyes, lips trembling in the way of someone trying not to cry. “I’ve regretted it so much, and I — I should have done something sooner to fix it, I —”

She covers her mouth again. Dean and Cas glance at each other, unsure how to comfort her. At last Charlie says shakily, “Could you take me to it? Maybe if I tried to fix the ring, she could pull me through.”

“Charlie,” Dean says carefully, “I ended up there because I fell through Wayne’s will-o’-the-wisp portal. And Gilda had to send me back right away or I’d be stuck in Wonderland forever. If we go out there, and if she can even get you to her land, you could be stuck there, too.”

“That’s fine.” Charlie smiles, though it’s small and wounded. “Because it would solve all your problems.”

“What?” Dean and Cas ask at the same time.

“Gilda wouldn’t have thought of it now, but she used to tell me one of her dreams for her world was to repair human and fairy relations — to stop the destruction of the rings and the kidnapping of the changeling children. She said the only way she knew to do it was for a human to willingly bind themselves to a fairy in a love match. The human has to choose to enter the fairy land of their own free will.” Charlie laughs a little. “This is going to sound cheesy as fuck, but love is the most powerful magic after all — she said a pairing like that would be strong enough to void all the deals like the ones you described. It would act as a peace treaty between the worlds."

“A willing sacrifice,” Dean says, incredulous. “But it’s love instead of blood or souls.”

“Yeah.” She’s determined now, squaring her shoulders and facing them head on. "Any of the fey who willingly hurt a human with a treaty in place would face death. But it's never worked before, because fairies don't trust humans and vice versa. Gilda didn't hold out any hope of ever finding two people willing to make the match."

"And you would be willing?" Cas asks, brows furrowed.

Charlie looks around her living room — it's much the same as it was when they were kids, with her parents' photos on the walls and old quilts Mrs. Bradbury sewed lining the couches. There are a few touches Dean recognizes as Charlie's — a collection of _Buffy_ Funkos on one shelf, the entire DVD set of _Battlestar Galatica_ opened on the floor by the TV — but mostly it looks like a home where two middle-aged farmers should live, complete with chicken-print wallpaper. Dean gets why Charlie spends most of her time traveling from convention to video game contest to convention again. She doesn't feel like she has a home. It’s the same feeling Dean had when John died, like he wasn’t welcome in their old house anymore, even if it contained his last memories of his mom.

It’s like living in past pain, and he knows all too well that’s no way to live.

"Yeah, I'm willing." Charlie walks over to one of the bookshelves and carefully picks up a picture of her parents smiling at her during a birthday party, a colorful cone hat sitting lopsided on her untamed childhood curls. She plucks the frame in her backpack and says, "And I’m already packed. So let’s go.”

///

**10:15 a.m.**

The three of them stand at the edge of the fairy circle, watching the flowers twist in the light breeze blowing through the trees. Charlie grips her suitcase handle tighter, tugging her backpack closer to her body.

“You don’t have to do this,” Cas tells her, his concern evident. “We can find another way to stop the leprechaun. Charlie, if you go, you might not be able to get back.”

Charlie smiles down at the small ring of bright grass, complete with new flowers — bluebonnets picked from the side of the highway replanted with care in the broken spot.

“I always did want an epic journey,” she says. “Like Dorothy or Alice. A quest. To step through the looking glass and fight the dragon and get the girl.”

“You’re mixing references,” Dean attempts to joke, and she shushes him, butting his shoulder with hers.

“Dean,” Charlie says, serious. “I can stop what happened to our parents from happening to anyone else. I can save Cas, and I can see her again. I’m gonna miss video games and role-playing and the internet, yeah, but this — this is a real life adventure. _I’m_ Alice now.”

When she lets go of her suitcase to hug him, Dean doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She steps back and turns to Cas, who seems shocked when she gives him a tight hug. Dean smiles at the two of them, his heart aching in ways both good and bad.

"Don't look at me like that, guys," Charlie says as she steps back, lightly knocking Dean on the shoulder with a fist. "I think — I think this is gonna work. And I don't just mean the treaty, I mean fixing the ring. So—" She drops her voice into a terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. "—I'll be back."

Dean groans, but Cas laughs.

"We look forward to seeing our fairy princess return," Cas jokes, and Charlie smiles.

“Damn right. Okay.” She pulls her suitcase up to the ring and takes a deep breath. “Down the rabbit hole we go.”

Charlie steps in the newly mended circle, and the grass begins to grow. A birdsong fills the air, and the flowers bloom brilliantly, the bluebonnets twining with those Gilda planted there so long ago. Dean and Cas watch in wonder as the ring completes itself, the hole healing as the flowers from two worlds come together.

“I think it’s gonna work,” Charlie says to them, a relieved smile lighting on her face, and then —

She’s gone.

Dean stares at the empty place where Charlie stood, and he swears he feels something — a change in the wind, in the woods, a lightening of the darkness that’s prevailed along Highway 9 for decades. A willing sacrifice made from love, made possible by forgiveness; the ring made whole again. 

“I think she did it,” Cas says quietly. Dean puts an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close.

“Yeah,” he says, throat tight. “So love wins all around, huh?” he tries to joke, but it comes out soft and serious. Cas kisses his cheek.

The fairy ring shines in the faint light filtering through the trees as the two men make their way toward the quiet highway, holding on to each other as they go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I thank you for reading — so, thanks for reading! 
> 
> Should you wish to share this story (which I would really appreciate), reblog [here](http://deancaspinefest.tumblr.com/post/172805977612/title-highway-9-author-ellispark-rating).
> 
> And many thanks to Wikipedia, which provided the exact John Milton quote I needed... after I spent hours looking for it in "Paradise Lost."


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